Adele Archer's Blog, page 12

Dearest ‘Heart’…

I don’t often write letters of complaint or bad reviews. It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth; I worry about the person receiving negative feedback. That person could be me. If I don’t like something or the way I’ve been treated, I take a deep breath and count to ten. It will usually pass. Actually, I did write a bad review once, but it was just on Trip Advisor and I was in a super sh*tty mood. You can read it here if you like – it’s under my husband’s nickname, but if you read this blog even just a little bit, you’ll know it’s me.

Anyway, I have recently been moved to write a letter of complaint again. It’s tongue-in-cheek really, and I hope the recipient will take it as such. But there’s just something that has been bugging me for years and I’ve been promising my children I would do something about it. So, today I’ve decided I will. This is a copy of an email that I am honest-to-goodness, hand-on-heart just about to sent to a local West Country radio station by the name of ‘Heart FM’. And I’m sorry, but they’ve really had it coming.

“Dearest ‘Heart’,

I have been listening to your radio station in my car for some years now – on the way to work and on the return from work (like most people). But only sporadically. There’s a reason for this which I am about to divulge to you. You’re a fundamentally good radio station and, for the most part, I like your DJs. Your travel and traffic updates have saved me from certain chaos and late-to-work-ness (real, and in no way made-up, word) on many an occasion. You SHOULD be my radio station of choice for that reason alone. But alas, you cannot be.

You see, it’s like this. Your music selection is dire. Okay, let me back-up there a bit. Not all of the music is ‘dire’, as such. But it has simply been played to death BY YOU on so many occasions, that I am sick to the back-teeth of hearing it. Your station has a couple of taglines that they like to use; ‘more music variety’ and ‘the best music from the 80s, 90s and today’. But that isn’t really the case, is it? What you actually mean is, you’re playing the music that you’ve already paid for and so you think to yourselves, ‘I know, I’ll get my money’s-worth and play it all of the live-long day!’. That would be acceptable (if annoying), if it was fairly current music. Most radio stations must adhere to their top-40 playlists. But you don’t play current music from today. You play music that is just over a year old, and that we’re all nauseated with hearing. You don’t actually play a variety of 80s or 90s music either, per se. What you play, on an alarmingly regular basis,  is this:-

‘Return of the Mack’ by Mark Morrison (hated this record even when it came out and like it even less now), Cira 1996

‘Finally’ by Cece Peniston (so very dull 24 years after its release), Circa 1992

‘What is Love‘ by Haddaway (seriously, why would you continue to play this?,) Circa 1993

‘Want to Want Me‘ by Jason Derulo (not that old but now want to top myself whenever it comes on), Circa March 2015

That’s not variety, is it? And you play these things again and again, like you’re doing us a favour, with a jaunty little comment like, ‘Ooh I love that one, haven’t heard it in ages, that really makes me want to get up and move!’. But you forget to mention that horribly dated song has been played five times that same day by your station. And five times the day before. And the day before that. But you see, I’ve noticed. And, apart from weekends, I only listen to your station for approximately an hour a day. So I can’t be the only one.

I know what you’re thinking, ‘why   doesn’t she just switch radio station if our music bothers her so much?’. Well, I’ve tried that. Radio 1 lost my patronage the day they got rid of Chris Moyles on the breakfast show. I know they did this on purpose because they wanted rid of over-forty-year-olds like me. Their music is now so horribly current (club music, really); so soulless and torturous and monotonous, that I won’t darken Radio 1s doors again. I know, I sound like my own Dad. But there it is. Current ‘popular’ music is, for the most part, rubbish. Even my 16 year-old-daughter can’t listen to it. She wants music she can sing along to. You can’t sing along to any of that noise.

I sometimes switch over to Radio 2. I quite like Chris Evans, I quite like Steve Wright (they’re the DJs who are always on during my morning and afternoon commute). But their ‘celebrity guests’ get on my very last nerve. I don’t want to know when their new book is released or when their new play opens on the West End. I once had the misfortune of listening to Jeremy Vine (when I had to leave work early for a meeting), but I hate talk-radio more than anything in this world. And the subject matter was SO unbelievably depressing that I nearly had to string myself up by the time I got to the meeting.

I’ve tried Classic FM, too. But let’s face it, I’m just not that classy – and even if I were, Classic FM only plays classical music for the masses anyway. There’s only so many times you can listen to the ‘theme from the Hovis commercial’ and not want to drive your car off a cliff.

You’re now possibly thinking, ‘well, why doesn’t she get a DAB radio in her car and then she can listen to anything?’. I drive a rather dilapidated 2003 Ford Fusion (which probably came out about the same time as some of the more up-to-date music you play). And it isn’t a ‘Fusion Plus’, or a ‘Mk II’ or a ‘Zetec’. It’s your bog standard, first edition, basic Ford Fusion. It’s got blank buttons on the dashboard where more elite Fusions have added extras (like air-con or…well, I don’t know what, because I don’t have any of those things!). But they put those buttons there, all blank and doing nothing, as if to say, ‘look what you could have had if you’d forked out a bit more money!’. It doesn’t even have electric windows!! I have to use the actual strength of my own bloody arm to open and close them! Anyway, I digress, the upshot of that is – my car stereo has a basic radio and a tape player. Yes, you heard it right, a tape  player . I don’t even have any sodding tapes anymore! Nobody does! So just to be clear, I intend to run that b*stard Ford Fusion into the ground (just like with all my other cars), and I am not prepared to spend even a tiny bit of cash on it for upgrades like car stereos. All it gets is MOTs and the cost of mechanical repairs so it will drive. THAT’S IT – until it dies. And since I don’t have any tapes anymore (like the whole population of the entire world), I’m forced to listen to bog-standard FM or AM radio.

So, that’s where you come in, Heart FM. You could really clean up with disillusioned, disenfranchised radio listeners like me; people who just want to sing at the top of their lungs on their way to and from work to cheer themselves up a bit. But you’ve let a good opportunity slide in what I can only glean is a cost-cutting exercise. You can turn this around, though. Here’s how; spend a bit of cash. It’s time to start investing in your station; you’ve got to speculate to accumulate. Cough up and pay for the rights to play some newer stuff (not Radio 1, mindless, droning clubby stuff, but good new stuff). Or classic old stuff that you don’t hear very often. Mix it up a bit. Chuck your Mark Morrison, Cece Peniston and Haddaway tracks in the bin. That’s tired, worn-out music now. Just like Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’; maybe acceptable once, but now needs to be wiped off the face of the earth, and the playlists of radio stations and wedding reception DJs alike. It’s a simple mantra you might like to use; play good music, be kind of amusing in between, play good music, be kind of amusing in between. If you want, I can pop down and help you chose a few tracks – free of charge. Well, you can pay my travel expenses, that’s all. It would be no trouble and would probably make a nice day out. Oh, and I like my coffee white, with one sweetener.

Yours Truly,

Adele (not Adele the singer, the other one)”

So there is my letter of complaint. I don’t honestly expect a reply or a letter of gratitude and thanks, or an invite down to the station to sort it all out for them. It’s more likely their lawyers will get involved. But I did it for you, my lovely blog readers. Well, sort of. A) I thought it would be a laugh, and might even make a mildly amusing blog and B) I hoped that perhaps the power of the written word could change the face of music on popular local radio. But mostly, it was for a laugh *holds beath, clicks ‘send’ and seeks legal representation*.

What Do You Want, A Medal?

I’ll be the first to put my hand up and say I’m not good at sports. I was never first choice of player for the school netball team or hockey team; I had no real aptitude for anything. I joined an athletics club in my early teens and got a great deal better (about the 6th or 7th fastest female long distance runner in my school at one stage, but never county competition-worthy). There was no career in sports awaiting me. But I do enjoy watching sports – some sports, anyway. I like to watch England play football (well, when I say like, I mean endure). Men’s English football is in a bit of a bad way. Too many overpaid players who just don’t ‘want it’ enough. I suppose you don’t when you get paid too much. I like to watch England play rugby (on our day, we can beat anyone, so it’s a safer bet than football). But what I enjoy most is watching tennis – tennis on grass, you understand. To be specific, I mean Wimbledon. I’ve loved to watch Wimbledon every summer since I was a little girl. I like it even more now we have a British player who can beat anybody if he’s on form (I’m talking about Andy Murray, obvs). I’ll watch any grand slam tournament, but really – if it isn’t at Wimbledon, then I can take or leave it. Actually, there is one thing I enjoy more than Wimbledon – and that’s The Olympics.

Once every four years, that special two-week period in summer comes around. All the titans of every sport you can think of come together in one place and vie for a spot on that podium (and that piece of metal of three varying colours to hang around their necks).And if they win? They’re officially the best in the world. I love to watch those sports that they don’t put on TV with any regularity; diving, cycling, swimming, gymnastics, athletics. I also love to see women excelling in sport; think about it, they don’t show a lot of sportswomen on regular TV. I’m the sort of person who’d book two weeks of annual leave just so I can stay home and watch The Olympics. I never have, I don’t have enough annual leave, but I’m the sort of person who would. Just like you, I’ve grown up watching The Olympics. But when I was a kid, Great Britain just didn’t perform. Apart from the odd gold here and there in athletics from Seb Coe, Steve Ovett and Daley Thompson, we didn’t do terribly well; a little country like ours with very little sports funding. We weren’t expected to. In 1996 in Atlanta, we finished 36th in the medals table. It was depressing. Why aren’t we any bloody good at anything? But all that changed with the introduction of lottery funding. Money was pumped into our sports; athletes now had the opportunity to train the way ‘the big boys’ trained (America, Russia and China). And by the time London hosted the Olympics in 2012 (which was the best Olympics Games of all time, if you ask me [which you didn’t]), we were a force to be reckoned with. I say ‘we’ very liberally and very loosely in this post. Bear in mind, I do realise I’ve had very little to do with Great Britain’s success (or have I…?).

At the time of writing this blog, Team GB are second place in the medal table. I know, second place. That’s us; just behind USA (a country of 324 million people), one place in front of China (a country of 1.3 billion people). Us. Little, and yet still Great, Britain; a country with a population of 65 million people, in second place in the medal table of The Olympic Games. We came third in the London Olympics, and with home advantage (although still astounding), we were expected to do well. But this is a games in a foreign country. The achievement is astonishing. It’s something that every one of us Brits ought to be proud of. And I’ve been thinking a lot about this. How has our nation achieved this? I’ve read a few articles about sports funding in this country. Apparently the thinking is pretty brutal. If funded sports are seen not to perform well in medal placements, funding is slashed within that sport and reallocated to sports where proven performances are better. It seems very harsh, I know. But it works. So I don’t care.

When the news came out that London had been chosen to host the 2012 games, you wouldn’t believe the amount of moaning and bitching there was in the UK. People complained that it was a waste of money when that monumental amount of cash could arguably be used for more important projects; like the health service, transport, education, defence. But I, and others like me, disagreed with that way of thinking. There is something about sport that can bring people together, there is something about sport (and great achievement in sport) that is invaluable for national pride. And it doesn’t do tourism any harm either. Once the 2012 games were over, those naysayers stopped moaning and bitching. Moral in the UK was at an all-time high. For once (and we are renowned as being a rather negative, self-effacing sort of people), we were actually proud to be British. We don’t go around thumping our chests shouting ‘UK! UK!’ at regular intervals. We aren’t, historically, a terribly proud nation. I always envied Americans and other nationalities for that; having no qualms in wearing their national pride on their sleeves. And after the 2012 games, just for once – we were like that. Proud to be us. The feeling in the UK was a very good one.

So I guess that’s why I’m so proud and honoured to watch our athletes compete and perform so well in Rio. We’ve had a tough year in the UK this year. The EU referendum and the prospect of leaving the European Union has divided us as a nation; turning countryman against countryman, Facebook friend against Facebok friend. But Rio has gone some way to ease that tension and division. We have come together again as a people to support our athletes; our amazing sportsmen and women from all walks of life, this ethnic melting-pot of a nation – all British, all superheroes. We, the British people, really needed this right now. That is why The Olympics is so important. That is why sport is so important (even if I’m not especially good at it). Oh, and I may have done no more than sit on my fat arse on my sofa screaming at the TV to cheer our amazing men and women on (I and all my other sporting armchair-pundit friends on my non-author Facebook feed; Julie M, Tony, Julie A, Mike, Sam, Lara, Becky, Kirsty – and the rest of you. You know who you are). But maybe, just maybe, our athletes heard our cheers and screams. We willed you on. We were with you all the way; in the back of your boat, on your shoulder as you ran or cycled or swam or vaulted. We fretted and we tore our hair out and we jumped up and down. Maybe you heard us.

There’s no hope of catching the Americans (I’m not mental enough to believe that’s possible), but second in the medal table, competing against all the bigger and stronger nations of the world? There’s no shame in that. So to all the athletes, the coaches, the husbands and wives and children who missed out on that time with their olympian family member, the people in charge of the money; thanks for that. I’m not being corny or schmaltzy, I had those genes surgically removed at birth. But without any hint of my usual British scepticism or eye-rolling or sarcasm, thanks for helping to heal Britain’s wounds. This isn’t jingoism either; I’m just feeling proud – for a change. Like I say, we needed this.

PS: This post was written and published before the end of The Olympics and before the final medal count was in. I don’t know yet if we remained in second or slipped down a place. But I remain incredibly proud. Well done Team GB.

PPS: Apologies to my husband and children for the back-to-back Olympic coverage you’ve been forced to watch on the TV for the last two weeks (apart from the time my husband turned over to watch ‘iZombie’ – we won a gold in the diving and I missed it. I’ll never forgive him). I may have practically ignored you, but it was worth it.

PPPS: Good luck Paralympians of all nations (but especially Team GB. Obvs).

The Road to Hell

Hello! Is it me you’re looking for? Probably not, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to do (either that or you read a different blog…oh, wait, don’t do that…well, you can. Just do it later). Well, you may or may not have noticed, but I’ve been absent for the last couple of weeks, because I’ve been on my summer holiday. Yeah, I know, it wouldn’t have killed me to write a blog or two but if you rearrange the words in this cleverly deconstructed sentence, you’ll understand that I had very good reasons why this was simply impossible: ‘Be couldn’t arsed I‘. I’ve been on a road trip around Europe, no less – well, some of Europe. But suffice to say, I’ve upped the ‘places I’ve been to’, so I can now officially tick a few more countries off my list. On our itinerary was France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany. A ship from Dover to Calais was the first step to our European tour. However, due to circumstances beyond my control, I almost didn’t make it anywhere ‘foreign’ at all…

Everything had gone to plan; bags were packed, passports and the ferry booking documents from Dover to Calais all accounted for, Euros had been obtained (the day before the EU referendum too, so at a great exchange rate – go me!), and the cats were packed off to stay with Grandma for two weeks. Nothing could go wrong! Except that it did. We set off to catch our 2am ferry in plenty of time. There shouldn’t have been much on the road, so no problems were envisaged, and at first there were none. At first. It was nothing out of the ordinary; driving into the back of traffic. On Britain’s motorways and duel carriageways, it happens. The strange thing was, it was midnight. And the traffic, well, it wasn’t slow-moving; it had stopped dead. And we were seven miles from the port of Dover.

Okay, we thought. We’ve over two hours before we need to catch our ferry – Dover is only a few miles up the road, we’ll be fine. But it wasn’t fine. The traffic would begin to move up ahead, everybody turned on their engines, moved a few yards, and then it would stop-still again. For half an hour or more. And after a while, our ample time was eaten away. We missed our check-in time. Then we missed our ship. As soon as our phones could find internet, my husband and I began frantically searching to see what was going on. It was the fault of French border guards doing stringent passport checks, slowing down passengers getting onto their ships. The Nice terror attack had only happened a week before, and whilst on a petrol stop halfway to Dover, we had heard about a mass shooting in Munich (which turned out not to be terror related, but nobody knew that at the time). English schools had broken up earlier that day and everybody was off to Europe. The combination was catastrophic. And we honestly hadn’t known a thing about it until we drove into the back of that traffic on the dark A20 that night.

So we tried to be stoical about it, we had two anxious kids in the back of the car wanting to be on holiday. ‘P&O ferries will just have to put us on the next ship, it’ll be fine’. But as the hours ticked by, our progress was non-existent. We missed the next ship. And the next. Bursts of movement in the traffic would happen sporadically, perhaps only once an hour, sometimes the driver ahead had fallen asleep at the wheel, you couldn’t get past him, the next lane would move on a bit, but yours was at a standstill. So your hourly move was missed. That happened to us twice. At one point, the traffic stopped moving entirely for over four hours (I’m not exaggerating). Drivers just gave up and went to sleep at the wheel. It was only when dawn light broke that the traffic began moving a little. The ferry companies must have stopped running the ferries overnight.

I honestly thought we’d at least make a morning ferry, I told the kids so. But it just didn’t happen. The heat of the sun steadily grew during the course of the next morning and afternoon. You couldn’t run your car to have air-con, because your car wasn’t going to move for an hour or so. At every stop, people would climb out of their cars and sit on the embankments at the side of the road. Some people had tiny children in their cars. Some people had no food and water. And there was no way out. There was once a slip road that a few drivers up ahead took to leave the desperate situation, only for us to see the same cars reversing back up the slip road to re-join us on our road to hell. Every road into Dover port was at a standstill. You couldn’t leave if you wanted to. Eventually, at around lunchtime, the decision had been made to close the other carriageway and the coastguards drove by in their jeeps giving out large bottles of water. It was one of the hottest days of the year. The tailbacks (throughout the night and morning) now spanned thirty miles.

The call of nature soon reared its ugly head. And urinating on a dual carriageway is not as much fun as you’d imagine. There was absolutely no undergrowth on the embankments to speak of; nothing you could successfully hide in, anyway, without revealing your lily-white arse to a captive audience of hundreds. Eventually we decided on opening the driver’s-side car door and the same-side passenger’s car door and squatting down on the tarmac (not too low, mind you, or that self same lily-white arse could still be visible). Luckily the oncoming traffic on the opposite carriageway was almost non-existent. But then, to micturate (aka to piss, if we don’t feel like being all technical) on tarmac is not as easy as peeing on soil (say, in a forest – we’ve all done that). On tarmac or concrete, the pee splashes back up at you and dampens the bottoms of your trousers. My eldest daughter physically couldn’t do it – I even held a blanket up to shield her from anything that should pass. But she had stage fright by then, so no fluids were forthcoming. Not so for us over-forties, we had to go. Fortunately for us, nobody needed to defecate for the entire journey. Shall we just say sh*it and be done with it? Yes, push the boat out (pardon the pun).

In desperation, I turned to social media for a bit of distraction (whenever I could find internet). I told Twitter my tale of woe (as my husband and I had agreed on a blanket ban of Facebook whilst on holidays – which was a shame, as Facebook is perfect for that type of whinging). Never mind that my husband had a ‘Whatsapp’ conversation running with the entire staff at his work to take his mind off things, I had to content myself with a bit of ‘Instagram’, which also shares to my Twitter account. Innocuously, I had said:-

To which, some tosspot (who I don’t even know) replied (and this is almost verbatim):- ‘F*ckwits drive to Dover and are surprised’. Well, this ‘f*ckwit’ hadn’t known about the traffic – nothing at all until we became a part of it! I wish I’d screen-shotted the comment to ‘out’ the tosspot (‘tosspot‘ is NOT the word I want to use, but I think you guys could be a little too delicate to handle my navvy-like potty-mouth when I’m angry. And that’s to your credit). But I wasn’t thinking of blog-fodder at the time. Believe you me, I’m not above using this blog to ruthlessly persecute Twitter trolls, but I was already in a rage, so deleted the comment. But not before reporting him and blocking the offending tosspot (I’d been stuck in a car for countless hours, there was piss on bottoms of my trousers; I was capable of far, far worse). I hope Twitter shuts the tosser’s account- that’ll teach him. So I couldn’t even expect succour from my beloved social media. Oh Facebook, how I needed you that day.

Anyway, we eventually reached the port sixteen hours after leaving home. There was only a mere two hour wait there whilst passport checks went on. When we passed the checkpoint (French border control had evidently given up by this point and drafted in British police), my husband held up our four passports. Only the maroon passport spines were visible, but the policeman cheerily waved us through. I swear to God; he didn’t even look at them. ‘I went to bed in my car, I’ve pissed three times on the duel carriageway; look at my f*cking passport, damn you!’. And at about 4pm in the afternoon, fourteen hours after our intended ship had sailed, our ferry finally set out for Calais. So that’s what happened; a nightmarish scenario that you see on the news from time to time – but not something you think will ever happen to you. A day of our hard-earned holiday had been lost. Okay, nobody died. But I did suffer, so do feel free to pity me. It’s scarred me for life – traffic will forever instil fear in me. I don’t think I’ll ever chose to travel by ferry again. At least when delayed at an airport (although awful), you can mill around duty free, sleep flat on the floor; a rolled up bag for a pillow, and piss in an actual toilet.Your trouser legs almost always remain virtually unscathed. We’re not happy that what happened was allowed to happen – we’ll be claiming on our travel insurance; we and all those other poor holiday-makers certainly deserve some compensation. I’ll let you know what transpires. I’ll put it towards another trip; I need a holiday after that…holiday.

NB: Apologies for the blog-rage. Next week I shall be in more jovial spirits, and there will almost certainly be less swearing. I’d imagine.

 

 

Alleluia!

Dolls, Dungeons and Daydreaming

One of the best things about blogging is reading the comments that people are moved enough to post in the little box at the end. And last week was no exception. I received a very interesting comment from a writer compadre, Laura Belgrave, about how she was a different sort of child with one foot in the real world and the other in an imaginary one. On the same day, a fellow blogger, Mike Senczyszak posted a blog about why he continues to write even though it can sometimes be a struggle. Both writers inspired me; set my mind to thinking. Why do I do this when nobody asked me to? Why do I continue to write when the tangible rewards are very few and far between? Where did this questionable pastime spring from? And after some reflection, I decided I could not answer this without going back to very early childhood. Because I believe the majority of writers are not just grown adults that one day say, ‘do you know what? I need to write my memoirs!’. I believe, in the main, we were born writers. Even if it took us until adulthood to realise it.

I was the second youngest of six children, born into fairly reduced circumstances. Right from the start, I didn’t much like those circumstances. And the need to escape was instilled in me from almost as early as learning to walk and talk. Now don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t the most special or gifted of those children. My siblings will all have their own unique story to tell – why they turned out the way they did. But I can only tell my story. As much as I enjoyed playing games with my brother and sisters (we invented some kick-ass games, by the way, with Sindy dolls, Action Men and other toys – always with madly convoluted stories you wouldn’t expect children to concoct), I would always earmark a large section of the day that was reserved entirely for myself. That wasn’t easy in a two-bedroom house with eight inhabitants, but I suppose this was where I had to get creative. The lack of solitude was the very reason that I learned to become so adept immersing myself in a fantasy world, and finding new and creative ways to do it.

I have vivid memories of an old chocolate tin that had once contained colourfully wrapped confectionery (but sadly no longer did), but what it had come to contain was so much better. The tin had been packed full of tiny toy soldiers and other small people of a similar stature. I decided that tin was a prison (like you do) and the people within were the unlucky incarcerated inhabitants or the evil prison guards. And from that tin grew my very own world. Every prisoner had a character and a back-story – how they had come to find themselves locked up in such a hellhole. But the lead character was a little plastic motorcyclist complete with a painted white helmet and black and blue suit, who had long since lost his motorbike (somewhere in the Black Hole of Calcutta, i.e. my house). Unfortunately, due to the permanent loss of bike, this meant he had to walk around in a fixed mid-crouch at all times. But this didn’t matter to me; he was the main protagonist (aka my favourite toy in the tin). Toy soldiers are ten-a-penny, but bike-less motorcyclists? They’re special. I want to say his name was Ricky? But I can’t swear to that, I was just a little girl. Anyway, the main gist of the story was that Ricky, on a daily basis, had to contrive new and riskier ways to escape from the clink. But poor Ricky never did make it out, I’m sorry to say. I used to sit there on the floor in some corner of the bedroom, obscured only by the post of a bunk bed and murmur the character’s dialogue to myself. I didn’t know it then, but this was the makings of my quest to be a writer. I’m certain of it. 

As time moved on and I grew in years, I felt it just wasn’t fitting for a child transitioning into her teenage years to continue playing with a tin of toy soldiers. But I secretly mourned its loss – that was my quiet time; my retreat into another dimension that wasn’t as crappy as the real one. Until one day I hit upon an idea that I could just write stories down in a book instead. I know, in a book! Genius! And jotting stories in a book was a less dubious pastime than ‘the tin‘, right? So at around the age of 11 (I’d guess) was the official beginning of my foray into writing. Exercise book after exercise book; every penny of my meagre pocket money spent on another one, stacking up and up, and stashed away in a cupboard that really ought to have stored more useful things. I remember the excitement of popping into Woolworths to buy a new set of five shrink-wrapped empty books. I simply loved it; the prospect of those clean pages opening the door to a new place. Sometimes it would be a stand-alone story, but usually I would be ensconced in a long-term soap opera – continuously playing out in my mind, but desperately yearning to be put down on paper.

I don’t consider myself in any way an exhibitionist, but I even took my books to school. I let my school friends read them (a class-full of girls and boys – I am seriously cringing at the recollection, as the stories had to be awful). But you can see, even then I must have needed feedback – some form of validation. I even wrote a book specifically tailored for my form class, titled, ‘The Haunted Philpott’. Mr Philpott was our secondary school history teacher/form tutor, and we had a love-hate relationship with him. I remember he looked a little bit like English cricketer Geoff Boycott, so I found a picture of the cricketer from the sports pages of a newspaper, tore it out and pritt-sticked it onto the front of my book. The entire class read it, and I believe it was a big hit. Just because we thought it would be funny, I actually left it propped up on the table in the classroom whilst we wrote a history essay in silence (well, silence apart from our snickering), just so Mr Philpott could see the book. That huge title, ‘The Haunted Philpott’, and Geoff Boycott’s massive black-and-white face emblazoned across the front. Mr Philpott must have been a good sport, because I recall his wry grin from across the classroom. I’m lucky he didn’t confiscate it and (heaven forbid) read the bloody thing! I could have been in big trouble. Honestly, these recollections are all just coming back to me now. And man, I was a weird kid… *shudder*

So you see, that was the evolution of my writing career (did I say career? Ha-ha…I meant hobby). It all really stemmed from that tin of soldiers and the mountains of cheap exercise books. From childhood, it was all about finding an escape from my reality – and although I’m fairly content with my current reality – it still is. The lure of another world will always be calling me. That’s why I do this. That’s why I write. If I’m never successful, if wring never makes me rich, I’ll continue to write anyway. Because it makes me happy. Because it’s a release from the stresses of life. Writing has got me through some very tough times – when my sister died, that’s all I did. There’s a lot to be said for stepping out of your own existence into another one. It’s a place you created, so it’s infinitely better than TV; better even than reading (and I love reading). So I suggest everybody tries it – if they haven’t already. Like I say, I do believe the majority of us writers were born this way, but I’m sure others can drift into it during adulthood. I also strongly believe the old saying, ‘everybody has a book in them’. The bulging cupboards at my mother’s house will attest, I just happened to have hundreds in me. I really ought to pop back to London one day to burn them… *shudder*

Many of my readers are writers too – so what about you lot? What are your earliest experiences of writing? What was the catalyst? And if you’ve never written, but have always wanted to, what do you think would move you to actually put pen to paper? Fiction or non-fiction? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I may be taking a brief hiatus as I’m off on a fortnight’s hols next week and the family have made a bit of a pact to cut down on screen time during the trip (dear God, why did I agree to this?). But maybe I’ll jot down some ideas for one big über post when I get back. Toodles!

I’m so sorry, Mr Philpott…

The World’s Biggest Underachiever

The other week, I dutifully attended my daughter’s ‘six-form evening’. My daughter has just finished sitting her GCSEs (exams for fifteen/sixteen-year-olds for which my foreign readers will have an equivalent). And if she makes the grade (5 Cs and above, including English and Maths), she will be eligible to attend her school’s six form to study her A-levels for two years. My daughter has worked incredibly hard, so I’d be super-surprised if she didn’t achieve this and much more.

Anyway, I must admit I went along to with a rather lacklustre attitude. It isn’t that I’m not interested in my daughter’s future, but it was an evening thing and I was tired after a long day at work. A mid-week parent-teacher evening? Are you kidding me? Also, I had to drag along my poor ten-year-old who would much rather be at home watching YouTube videos on how to pierce her Design-A-Friend doll’s ears. To be honest, I just wanted my sofa. So there we sat in the hall of my eldest’s secondary school and listened to firstly the Headmaster and then the Head of Year, Mr Penny. He talked about the joys (but also the pitfalls) of six-form. He discussed how our kids were no longer kids, and yet they were not grown-ups either – so needed careful management. He discussed the opportunities on offer, but also the incredible work ethic that will be required for our children to be successful. And I remember sitting there, suddenly transfixed. I stopped thinking about my sofa which had been calling to me like Sirens to a ship-full of sailors, and I started to feel…envious.

Now let me explain, I am not jealous of my eldest daughter’s sparklingly bright and full-of-potential future. She has worked like a demon to get where she has (we don’t even know her exam results yet, but I am so confident after all the hard work she has put in, I am simply certain she is going to do well academically). I am not envious of that; I am rapturously happy for her. I can’t wait for her to experience all those momentous events that only a teenager can. But I just wish I could relive my experiences once more. Or more correctly, I wish I hadn’t frittered away the time and opportunities I had – pissed it all up the wall the way I did.

You see, when I was sixteen, I wasn’t like my daughter. Even though I was always a bright, savvy child – that potential was marred by crippling apathy and the shortest attention span ever bestowed on a teenager. If I’m not completely absorbed and engaged by a subject (like I am when writing a book or a blog), then my mind is prone to wandering. I’m the same now I’m in my forties. Whenever I do any face-to-face or online studying for my job, I virtually have to prise my eyes open with matchsticks and fashion a rudimentary neck brace out of a piece of metal that happens to be lying around just to keep my head pointed in the direction of the subject that is being taught. I have to dig my fingernails into my palms to stop from falling asleep, and my internal voice will scream at me, stay focused! Because I can’t stay focused – not for five minutes. And consequently, I didn’t do especially well in my GCSEs (or A-levels for that matter). If I’m not thoroughly interested in a thing, then I can’t keep my mind fixed on it. I’ve always been a dreamer, and dreamers don’t tend to do well academically. Not when there were stories in my head; plots and characters knocking at the inside of my skull, waiting to get out. Exams be damned!

Still, here was Mr Penny standing before us in this typical English school hall, talking about the potentially amazing life our kids could expect, the endless possibilities for our hard-working offspring. He talked about how they must organise their work-space at home; keep a tidy desk and a tidy mind, place a few plants here and there, buy some cue cards – some highlighters to brighten up their revision. They must plan their schedules, stick to timetables. And I really wanted all that – just for that hour or so spent at that parent’s evening – I wanted to relive my youth all over again. But this time, I would do it properly. I’d have a plan, set goals, have a career in mind, work diligently towards that sparkling career. This time, I would do everything a thousand times better. I would keep focused on my goal, work harder than I had ever worked before – not just fall into something, I’d have planned it. Because this time, I’d be driven. I’d make my circumstances better than the circumstances of my birth.

But of course, I can’t go back. I had my opportunities and I pretty much blew them. And if you gave me the chance to turn back time and re-do it all, I’d blow my chances again. Because you see, I haven’t changed. The forty-four year old me is much the same as the sixteen-year-old me. I care, but I don’t care enough. I fret and I worry and suffer from debilitating angst, but not about the right things; not about the important things that should matter. While I sat on that plastic school chair, listening to Mr Penny and feeling exited about my daughter’s glittering future, I knew that girl could never have been me. And how do I know that? As the session came to a close and parents in the audience were invited to ask questions, I found myself getting irritated; eyes rolling because of the mother who incessantly asked question after question about her child going to Oxford or Cambridge (like your child is going to Oxford or Cambridge!). I knew then I would never change – because I cursed that woman in my mind, I cursed her for making me late back to my sofa. Shut up and stop asking questions, I just want to go home! And you see, that’s the problem. Deep down, I’ve always just wanted to go back to the peace and tranquillity of home, taking the easiest and least taxing route to get there…

So as I watch my daughter potter about her newly decorated room; placing her new desk and chair just so, setting up her computer, arranging a couple of succulents to her liking and checking on the position of her cue cards, coloured post-its and highlighters in her intricately arranged drawer, I think to myself – good for you. Be the girl that I could never be. Set your sights and your goals astronomically high. Work hard and you just might achieve them. In fact, I’m absolutely certain you will. I can’t and won’t live my dreams through you – this is your time. Your sparkling future awaits you; and I’ll be there to help in any way I can (not in any academic way, I don’t know sh*t, but I can make you a nice green tea). I’ll be there on the sidelines, always cheering you on.

Can I get you a green tea?

 

Launch Party!

Hello and welcome to my book launch party! I’ll be honest with you, it’s a virtual party and I’ve provided absolutely no alcohol or dancing. But you’re welcome to read this blog post whilst you’re completely smashed, if that helps. And if you choose to be dancing about your front room at the same time, nobody will judge you. Least of all me.

So, I hereby announce the launch of my new book, ‘American Cousins’ (International Relations part II)! Yay! This took a mere eighteen months since the release of the first book (and that’s eighteen months of editing, mind – not writing. I’m a lazy sod). Anyway, if you want it, it’s out on Kindle and in paperback from Amazon. But it’s up to you, no pressure, I’ll still love you if you don’t – no hard sell from me. Much.

To be fair, this is not much of a blog post. I doubt I’ll hit a 1000 words. I was going to have the weekend off. Y’know, my husband is at Glastonbury, my daughter is away at a wedding and I was thinking of having an entirely writing-free couple of days. I’d be slobbing out on the sofa, staring aimlessly at a BBC adaptation of a period drama on Netflix (probably the six-hour ‘Pride and Prejudice’ or the six-hour ‘Emma’ or the six-hour ‘Jane Eyre’ marathon. Maybe all three back-to-back. Eighteen hours with only snack and toilet breaks) or something. It’s been so long that I’ve felt I’ve had nothing to do in my spare time that it feels a bit weird. The pressure (self-imposed, but pressure all the same) is finally off.

Actually no, it’s not off. There’s a third book to edit now. Which probably sounds like a walk in the park, but editing is way harder than writing. So undoubtedly, it’ll be another eighteen months before I get around to publishing that bastard thing. I’m frikkin’ prolific, me! But when I finally submit book III, that will be a day to celebrate. I will actually have NOTHING to do on my days off. I’ll probably be all skippetty-hoppetty at first. Then the gloom will set in. I expect I’ll feel lost. Then I’ll feel hopeless because I haven’t got an idea for a new book. Maybe I’ll have to hang up my pen and pack it all in when that day comes (can you hang up a pen? I suppose if you tied a bit of string to it, you could. Plus, I always type on a laptop, so I’d have to tie a bit of rope to that and hang it somewhere. It’s a logistical nightmare, that’s what it is).

Anyway, to any of you who WERE expectantly awaiting the publication of my second book (all three of you), I apologise profusely. I was having problems with plot structure and possessive plurals and overuse of the word ‘nonchalant’. I know I blame this for everything that is wrong with my life, but I’m a superficially educated Cockney who was raised by wolves. Sorry, that’s not true, but sometimes being ‘good with words’ just wasn’t quite enough. But I ensured I was all tooled-up for these books (being that many of my tools are still missing – scroll down and see last post), and I’ve edited this baby to within an inch of its life.

So like I say, this is a brief blog from me. You’re probably pleased. You’re that much closer to getting up and having a cup of coffee (if you aren’t already drunk and dancing around on your own in your pyjamas in your front room. I wish you’d stop behaving like this at parties, you’re showing me up and I shan’t invite you again). For those of you who choose to take the perilous path of reading my new book (all three of you), please leave a review on Amazon when you’ve finished – self-published authors really do rely on these. Unless you hate it and it made you want to carve off your own head with a nail file. Then I’d advise you don’t leave a review – I wouldn’t want you to purger yourself by saying something you don’t mean.

Anyhoo, time for me to skedaddle. The back-to-back marathon of wall-to-wall bonnets and bustles and ‘taking a turn about the room’ isn’t going to watch itself, y’know. I’m a trooper like that – I put in the hard yards, so you don’t have to.

Actually, I don’t need it…

PS: HUGE thanks again to my put-upon friend Amy for all your help and advice. It’s a better book for having your critical eye tear it to shreds…I mean, look it over

Take These Words

I was in two minds about writing this post. It wasn’t a terribly palatable thing to write about (not for a would-be writer). The trouble is, I am compelled to jot down what I see in my world around me; my reality. I mean, it isn’t the law – nobody will shoot me in the head if I don’t record every little thing that occurs. But I feel it’s my duty to document these things. Plus, I needed something to write about…because it’s Saturday. Y’know, ‘blog day’ waits for no man. Or woman…

When you write a book, which I once did in a distant past, you can’t just publish it and lie back on your chaise longue eating grapes for the rest of your life (I’ve tried). Self-published and published authors alike need to get out there in the virtual world and…y’know, mix a bit. Therefore, over the months I have built up an impressively large network in the writing community. The writer me, Adele, is everywhere; Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter (and lots of other places that don’t really help to drive traffic to the blog, so I frequent them less). The writer me is annoyingly prevalent. I annoy myself with my shameless publicising, anyway. However, ninety-five percent of those social media friends I have made along the way, I’ve never met. Some I converse with, some I don’t. I’m making it sound like it’s a distasteful process, but that’s not true; I enjoy it. I enjoy the camaraderie. Some of those social media friends I would very happily go down the pub with. And writing can be a lonely business – it’s nice to know we are all in the same boat. But we are all writers who can’t give up the day job, touting our wares on the social circuit. Or perhaps I should just speak for myself. Anyway, I should cut to the chase. It’s about time. Very recently, across my social media patch (and even though it’s a small patch, it encompasses writers from every corner of the globe), one writer accused another writer of stealing and publishing his and many others’ stories. I know, yikes.

Plagiarism is a terrible thing. I do not make light of it. There’s just no defence for it. Writing is hard work; it’s an art form and you either get it very right or you get it very wrong (like I often do). But the creation you’ve made is yours – even if it’s crap. Plagiarism is theft. But this post isn’t really about the details of that unsavoury occurrence; who did what to whom. It’s not my place (unfortunately the evidence was pretty damning, so it looks as though some form of plagiarism went on). It just made me stop and think. So what I really want to discuss is ‘why?’. Why would one person want to take the words from the imagination of another? What sense of personal achievement and pride could one possibly take from passing off another’s work as one’s own?

Personally, it’s something I could never even contemplate doing for a multitude of reasons. A) The writing community is very small and you’d inevitably get caught. B) Writing is about giving of yourself; tentatively offering your fictional or non-fictional story to a world that may or may not actually want to read it. C) There’s no money in writing. Trust me, I know. I couldn’t even buy a nice pair of shoes with what I’ve made so far. Even brilliant writers make no money – only the lucky few do. So what I’m saying is, there’s no point in stealing the ideas and imagery of another, as there is literally no payoff whatsoever.

When this depressing news broke, not for one millisecond did I ever worry about my work being stolen. Not for a millisecond. I mean, who would want to? Ha-ha-ha! No really, I’m serious, who would want to? The writing that was allegedly lifted was clever, full of depth; pretty adroit stuff. Hence why I’m fairly certain my work is safe. I made a conscious decision many moons ago to just be myself. I’m pretty sure I write as though I’m just having a chat, in a sing-song manner, flagrantly messing with the English language, using colloquialisms and expressions that I would use in my everyday life. Like this tosh here that you’re forced to read on a weekly basis on this blog. My books are written in a similar vein (I’m really selling myself, aren’t I?). Unless you came from exactly the same place as me, had the same upbringing, have exactly the same neuroticism and off-beat humour, you’d be pretty stupid to want to pass my stuff off as your own. I’m not saying I’m super–original or one-of-a-kind. In many respects, I’m ten-a-penny. One thing is for sure though, I don’t write Pulitzer Prize-winning stuff. I perhaps don’t have the tools that some of the great writers do. Or at least, I have the tools, but some of them are missing. I must have left my toolbox in the van overnight and it was broken into – and my most expensive tools were stolen. Shall I stop with the tool analogy now? Yes, I think I will.

I’m not talking about writing books in the same ilk as another (although it’s always best to be original). I’m not talking about fan faction either (although that’s pretty weird). I’m certainly not talking about recycling the odd word. God, I read books on my Kindle all the time and find a word that I just like the sound of (I tend to press and hold on said word [don’t you just love Kindles?] because I sometimes don’t quite know what said word means – give me a break, I’m a Cockney). But that word is then assimilated into my vocabulary. And then it’s as though I’ve always had that word in my arsenal – I just couldn’t find it before. It’s healthy to learn a new word every day and I hope to keep learning until I’m old – words like ‘insouciance’. Mmm, I like it. Insouciance. When I looked it up, it meant just what I’d hoped – and then I artlessly crow-barred it into my books at will. Words are free. Words belong to everybody. Sentences and paragraphs don’t. Your phrasing, your diction, your imagery – that really ought to belong only to you.

Still, it’s an interesting lesson that everything you put out there on the Internet is theoretically up for grabs (not my stuff – but decent writer’s stuff, you understand). Once that work is floating around cyberspace and you forget all about it, move on to pastures new – in time your work could be reused, and refashioned cleverly into something else. And what could you possibly do about it if that happened? Nothing. Most of us can’t afford to get lawyered-up. And the average plagiarist won’t have made enough money to compensate you if you did. My books, for instance, stem from ideas I had as a teenager. I can prove it; I have stacks of exercise books filled with my spidery, pretentious teenage writing. But prove it to whom? Who would listen?

I hope I haven’t been too flippant, made a mockery of what is a serious subject. I can’t help writing in this random, innocuous way – that’s what I do (copyright 2015). It must be a terrible thing to  happen to a writer and a difficult crime to prove. I’d be heartbroken. Writing isn’t always a tangible thing – it’s not like somebody stole your car. In a way, it’s worse. That lovingly crafted thing you created – that was your baby. And somebody took your baby and pretended it was their baby. Unforgivable. Your voice is only your voice. There is absolutely no justifiable excuse for taking that away from someone. Like I always say, writing is the painting of the voice.

(I have literally never said this).

PS: Sorry about my last sentence, but I can’t resist a good gag. Or any gag really.

PPS: Oh, could somebody please bring back my tools? I really need them…

 

 

The Little Things

I have a feeling, over the last 18 months of blogging, that I may have given the impression of being a bit of a whinger. If you need some examples, click here and here (but do that later, read this first). It’s safe to say there’s much about life that gets right on my very last nerve. BUT I’m here to redress that balance. There’s a lot of factors in my little world that give me pleasure too. I’m not going to talk about the more self-evident ones that the majority of us like; coffee (and lots of it), writing (obvs.) or cats (they’re better than dogs, you just haven’t realised it yet). The few I’m going to talk about, whilst not being exclusive merely to me, are perhaps a tad more unconventional day-to-day diversions that just help to keep me going.

Bin Day

Successfully navigating ‘bin day’ is a right of passage that proves you’ve really made it as a grown up, in my opinion. Getting the maximum amount of refuse crammed into your bin and wheeling it around the front of the house at the appointed time so as not to miss the early morning collection – that’s an art, that is. Where I live, the bin-man drives his truck around on a Monday morning – so you can see I’ve already got that little obstacle of ‘Bank Holiday Monday’ to factor into my routine (they collect on bank holidays, I just often forget that particular Monday isn’t a weekend day as I don’t have to go to work). Also, our rubbish collection schedule runs on alternate weeks:- one week is general waste (black bin), the next week is cardboard and plastic only (blue bin). I can be seen peering out onto the street on Sunday nights to try to glean which bin the neighbours have put out. But there’s no colour in the dark, so it’s a tricky business. So you can see how you run the gauntlet on bin day, and that’s a part of its charm. That smug little sense of satisfaction when you get it right for another week (the consequences of an already-full bin for another fortnight is too much to bear). But that risk makes the  pay-off of an empty bin all worthwhile.

Salad

There is no way on God’s earth this would have made the list eight months ago. Salad was a dull accompaniment one had on one’s plate for garnish, fit only for rabbits, guinea pigs and 5-a-day brownie points. I used to eat a sandwich every lunchtime, and that was the way I liked it. Bread…mmm. But after I started my healthy eating plan and cut down on the carbs a bit, I realised salads were the way to go. I now eat salad every lunchtime and have done for the last eight months. I’m not talking about your tedious lettuce, cucumber and tomato trio. No. I’m talking full-on, shove anything in you’ve got available, f***-off salads. Yes, those. Apart from the filler of lettuce, mine often comprise of chicken, feta, olives, gherkins, beetroot, avacardo, sunflower seeds etc. etc. And a nice dressing. They’re hardly even healthy. But I maintain my weight loss because, even though they contain lots of fat, they’re good fats. Vegetables and protein (and fat) – mmm… I still love my carbs, and sometimes I’ll allow myself a small wholemeal flat-bread on the side, but salads are now part of my life. The other day my husband made me a sandwich for my ‘work lunch’ (we’d run out of salad). Bland does not even begin to describe it. The disappointment was unbearable.

Getting Up At 6am

I’ve always been more of a lark than an owl. But my favoured rising-time was about 7:30am – even on weekends. That was before the arrival of our cats. I just found I couldn’t get ready for work and sort out the school-run once I’d factored in ‘cat care’. So I started getting up at 6am – which I resented at first. But after a short while, I realised I had this strange thing called, ‘time‘ on my hands. What’s more, it was time alone (with the cats). Once those little felines were catered for, I could loaf about at the kitchen table eating a leisurely bowl of porridge, sip decadently on a proper coffee (not instant), surf the internet and catch up on social media (with my favourite cat on my lap). And I could do this until all the other house alarms went off and the rest of the family decided to show their sleepy faces. I get up early at the weekend too – to do exercise (which is something else I really love. I never thought I’d say that either). That was before my children got wise to the 6am gig. They too realised that there was something rather nice about not rushing. And now that quiet kitchen table is filled with chatter. Which is nice too. But maybe I’ll get up at 5…

Coming Home from Holidays 

I used to love going on hols as a kid, I used to dread coming home to reality (I guess I didn’t like my particular reality). But I’ve changed a lot since I’ve grown up. Everybody likes going away on holiday. And so do I. Well, sort of. I guess I like the planning and anticipation and getting away from it all. But there’s also that fear of the unknown. What if I can’t speak the language (I won’t be able to speak the language)? What if the toilet situation isn’t quite what I’m hoping for (it won’t be what I was hoping for)? And then there’s that constant pressure that you must be enjoying yourself at every given moment. I like a break, a change of scene, to have new experiences – I do. But I just happen to like my own familiar surroundings better. No matter where I go, no matter how beautiful or educationally stimulating, I love coming home. I positively look forward to it; to have all my little things around me and everything in its proper place. Only then can I really be content.

What little things do you like (no matter how quirky or mundane)? What are the little day-to-day occurrences you take pleasure in? You’ve got to appreciate the little things. And let the crappy big things take care of themselves. So there you have it – some things do make me happy. I know what you’re thinking, ‘she still managed to whinge quite a lot whilst telling us what she enjoys, though‘. Yeah well, maybe so, but I said I’d discuss a few things I like, I didn’t promise to change my whole personality…

PS: Loyalty cards, with the stamps; collect enough of them and get free stuff. Like that too.

 

Peace Be With You

The other day, I had occasion to find myself in a completely empty Catholic church (I have my reasons). And as I knelt there, trying to find a comfortable way to kneel in a slightly-too-narrow pew, the experience began to conjure up all kinds of childhood memories. I was raised a Catholic, and I still consider myself a Catholic – albeit a horribly lapsed one who isn’t entirely certain about the presence of God. This post most definitely isn’t about religion so I’m not going to go into the whys or wherefores of faith. Believe whatever you like, and so will I. But there’s just something about the atmosphere of a church that I bet brings up a lot of mixed emotions for all of us.

I’m not entirely sure how this came about but even though both my parents are relatively godless people (I couldn’t tell you what, if anything, either of them believe in. It never comes up), but from an early age, my siblings and I went to Mass. My parents were virtually never there  – Mum might have come along for the odd midnight Mass, but that’s about it (to be fair, she wasn’t a Catholic, only my father was, and he couldn’t be bothered). This decision to herd a gaggle of six scruffy children to church on a weekly basis was certainly the brainchild of my eldest sister and brother. They can’t have been terribly old themselves but they evidently felt that the religious instruction of their younger siblings was of vital importance. I remember being dragged on a 30-minute route march (30 minutes there and 30 minutes back) every Sunday morning to ‘Our Lady of the Assumption’ Catholic church. I was the second youngest of the six and I must have been fairly small – but able to walk. I remember dreading Sunday mornings – mainly because of (what seemed at the time) the mammoth trek required to get there. But once we had made our way through the lobby, splashed ourselves with a bit of chilly holy water, pushed our way through the throngs and managed to find an entire pew for six, I was always fairly content to be there.

To be honest, the priest’s sermon was never terribly engaging to a small child like me. Mass seemed overly-long and a bit dower. It certainly went on for an hour. Maybe more. It felt like days. But nobody ever thought to bring me a colouring book. His sermon was never really relatable to little children – but I guess you can’t cater for everybody. Still, I liked Father O’Malley’s Irish accent, although that lovely gentle lilt (albeit unbelievably difficult to understand) did make me feel a bit sleepy. It wasn’t his fault that I, as a child, couldn’t engage with his words. Catholic services are notoriously crazy-boring. There ain’t no happy-clappy, throw your hands in the air, dancing in the aisles shenanigans in our church. But then I haven’t been for years, so maybe everything has changed…

I have always enjoyed a nice sing-song and therefore singing hymns in church was always the best bit. But only if they chose the right ones. Sometimes I would look up at the hymn numbers on the board, check them out in the hymn book and be bitterly disappointed that some joker had chosen all the dull ones with a melody that was impossible to commit to memory. Or the miserable ones which made you want to kill yourself. But what is it with the high-pitched key that hymn-writer’s invariably go for? Even as a kid I found I was practically screeching to hit the high notes. Apart from Maria Carey, who among us really can sing that high? Who? I ended up having to sing an octave lower like the men, but always came a cropper when the hymn had an unfortunate low point. Then I’d virtually be growling. No, church hymns are always arranged for sopranos and not altos, like me. I think this is unfair and perhaps we need to get together a petition.

I particularly got excited when you had the opportunity to ‘extend the sign of peace’; where everybody turned to the person next to them and shook hands, saying, ‘peace be with you’. My brother used to think it was hysterically funny to mutter under his breath so quietly that he actually got away with saying, ‘please and thank you’ instead. The rest of us thought this was a great lark and soon adopted this practice as well. There were a lot of ritualistic practices like the sign of peace – I wouldn’t dream of going to church now without doing a bit of revision on the order of service. You could look a complete fool. How do you know when to kneel? How do you know when to stand? How much money do you put in the basket (and where can I get one of those pesky envelopes that hides the amount)? One of the rituals I enjoyed was the Eucharist; getting in the queue and lining up with your hands out for the wafer-thin rice cake…I mean bread, and a sip from the chalice of cooking sherry…I mean wine. Our poor littlest sister wasn’t able to join us as she hadn’t had ‘First Communion’ (when they dress you up in a white dress and veil and disgusting white sandals if it’s the 70’s and…I don’t remember, I’ve blanked the rest out. It was worth it though, because you got to join the bread and wine queue!). I don’t know why she missed out, maybe my mother got bored by the sixth child. I always told her she might as well get up in the queue like the rest of us as nobody would ever really remember this secret shame after a while. But I guess she couldn’t handle the thought of lying in church, so she never did. And still hasn’t to this day

What I particularly liked was the end of the Mass. Now I’m not being cynical, I rather enjoyed going for the most part, but it’s like going for a long run or doing a work-out. You don’t especially want to do it but you feel really virtuous once it’s done.Yes, I remember those days with fondness. I miss our lovely old church with its beautiful architecture, statues of Jesus and Mary, and ornate stained-glass windows. I miss the atmosphere; the smell of incense and lit candles. Being surrounded by old people; their cold, wrinkled hands, the strong Irish accents and kindly eyes. I just can’t replicate those childhood days for my kids in the town in which I live now. Our Catholic church is a very modern building and it just doesn’t have the right atmosphere – the ambiance isn’t as I remember it. Plus I’ve grown up now. I’m in charge of what we do on a Sunday morning and, let’s face it, we don’t have to go. But maybe when I’m the old lady in search of companionship and feel the need to sing my lungs out to a ridiculously high-pitched hymn, maybe then I’ll venture back.

 

I never found out what she’d assumed…

 

NB: If you get the urge, tell me about your childhood church stories and experiences below. And if you’re a regular church-goer now (ideally Catholic), would you write me out a detailed list of what you’re expected to do during the service? I don’t want to look like an idiot next time I convince myself I ought to go to midnight Mass on Christmas Eve…

Lynn’s Day

Today is the fourth anniversary of my sister’s death. We call it Lynn’s Day. Every year on this date I try to commemorate it in some special way but I have to say, every year ends up being the same; a bit of a farce. I usually like to find some Catholic Church (a place I never frequent any other time of the year) and go light a candle, have a little cry and allow myself to really think about her. That’s something I don’t do on a daily basis but I just can’t – or I wouldn’t be able to function; go to work or look after my kids – I’d just be a gibbering mess. One anniversary in the deserted church (whilst my husband was forced to ride off on his motorcycle in torrential rain to locate a local supermarket as some joker had forgotten to leave out any matches to light the candles), the effort of actually letting myself consider the enormity of what happened was so severe that I actually began to feel physically unwell. There were pains in my chest that hadn’t been there before so I had no choice but to quickly retreat home until the affects of stress had worn off. Another year, the silent church I had been hoping for just wasn’t to be – firstly I dropped an entire purse-full of small change incredibly audibly all over the floor (my youngest child was virtually crying with laughter over this). And once I had finally retrieved all the coins, lit a candle, composed myself and knelt down in a pew, in came an elderly cleaning lady with an industrial-sized vacuum cleaner and proceeded to loudly hoover the entire room. At precisely the same moment, a window cleaner propped his metal ladder against the wall outside, peered in at us, and began noisily cleaning the windows with a incredibly squeaky squeegee. Which, as you can imagine, was exactly the reverent ambiance I was after. So you see what I mean about ‘a farce’.

Maybe I’ll abandon the farcical church idea today. On this anniversary I thought I would try to honour her memory in a way that is more fitting, a better tribute from me. I am going to let you read the eulogy I wrote (and read aloud) for her funeral. It will make me cry to even look at it again (as it did to read it out loud on that fateful day) but that’s what today is about; fully registering and accepting what I have lost.

 

‘There’s Something About Lynn’ – by Adele Archer, Memorial Service May 2011

I’ve been asked today to talk for the family about Lynn. Now this isn’t going to be easy but I want you to bear with me. I’ve tried to keep it fairly light-hearted as Lynn would have wanted it that way. I was cajoled into making an impromptu speech at Lynn’s wedding too but it is an honour and a privilege to be asked to talk to you today. We all have our own little thoughts and memories about Lynn and I’d just like to share a few of mine with you.

Now some of you may be aware that Lynn had a few foibles that were charming and you just had to love her for them. One of these was an unhealthy addiction to charity shops. In a foreign, alien land, within the space of half an hour, Lynn would deftly be able to sniff out the best charity shops in the city. With her honed, keen senses she could skilfully hunt down the greatest bargains and the best labels – a feat most of us with our untrained eyes could only dream about. Unfortunately, her great love of charity shops could only lead to one outcome – an excess of clothes. Michael and Jacob will tell you that there is no property on this earth big enough to sufficiently house all of Lynn’s clothes. I do remember one particular instance of Lynn’s penchant for clothes and how they should be worn. She once knowledgeably advised me, “I never feel happy unless I am wearing two vests.” Of course, flummoxed and confused by this, I humoured her as best I could.

The clothes issue was only the beginning. Don’t get me started on the love of ornaments and knick-knacks and ‘things’. This was fuelled by the popular rise of DIY and make-over shows that Lynn watched with relish. Her knowledge of feng-shui and the alignment and symmetry of candlesticks on a mantelpiece was second-to-none. She once had a harmless squabble with my partner, Gareth, over a photo frame they both spotted at a car boot-sale. Unfortunately, on this instance, Gareth beat her to the purchase. Lynn smiled graciously, hiding the bitterness and resentment that must have torn her up inside. Nobody should ever best Lynn at a boot sale. I don’t think she ever truly forgave him.

We all knew Lynn as a gracious host. She loved to make a hot beverage for any guest stepping through her door and she had an amazing array of these. No hot-drink predilection was left un-catered-for. Her biscuit barrel famously overflowed with the most current and tastiest chocolate-covered treats money could buy. I particularly remember her long-time love affair with ‘Time-Out’s’. For an extensive period, I was offered these at an alarming rate (at half-hourly intervals, I believe). You would never guess it by her trim build that we all envied, but (like all Archer’s) Lynn did enjoy her food. At no other time was this heightened more than during her pregnancy with her son, Jacob. On the course of a three mile journey home, she was forced to stop off at various family members’ houses for snack-breaks to make it to her own front door.

Lynn had a fun and eventful life. I have been reminded by my sister, Ali, of a particular occasion, whilst they were shopping on a busy London High Street. Ali had spotted a metre-by-metre square of freshly laid cement blocking her path on the pavement and sensibly stepped around the square to avoid it. Lynn, however, blindly strode on through until she found herself waist-high in wet cement. The bemused and amused workmen nearby were forced to pull her out and hose her down in front of a growing crowd of passers-by. Lynn then realised she had haplessly left one of her very favourite silver sandals behind somewhere deep in the cement and was obliged to wade back in, only to be re-rescued and hosed off again by the bewildered workmen.

But sometimes Lynn did sensible things too. She met the love of her life, Michael, whilst visiting Ali in Birmingham on a college course. It was love at first sight. Her new life with Michael began – a man who gave her years of happiness and the strength to fight through her illness. And of course the result of this love was the birth of their cherished son, Jacob. Never was a child loved and adored so much.

So this is the hard bit. None of us wanted this day to come. If there was any justice in this world, none of us would be sitting here today. But I am learning that sometimes life can be unkind, unfair and cruel. Today we have to say goodbye to our beautiful Lynn who fought so bravely right up until the very end.

She was the adoring mother to Jacob, devoted wife to Michael, a loving daughter, a caring sister, a generous aunt, a kind sister-in-law, a supportive teacher and a wonderful friend to everyone…except TV presenter Zoe Ball (she didn’t like her very much…).

To Lynn; I will never wipe your amusing text messages from my mobile phone, I will never take down your pictures stuck by magnets to my fridge, there will always be six of us siblings – not five and when I look in the mirror I will always see part of you in my reflection. Live on in our hearts and memories and always know you will never be forgotten. We’ll all be together again one day and I know you will be waiting for us with a cup of tea and a ‘Time Out’. Love you forever.

NB: I did actually venture out with my kids to a church again today (against my better judgement). It was yet another odd one. I realised too late that the church had been overly-decorated with flowers on every pew; there was clearly a wedding taking place later. So I knew it was going to have to be an ‘in and out’ job. An extremely elderly priest with the bushiest eyebrows I’ve ever encountered ventured over to tell us there wasn’t going to be a mass today. I explained that was no problem and that we only needed a minute to commemorate the passing of my sister. He then proceeded to pray over us with his hands on our heads. Which was kind of him (he couldn’t be expected to know about my low-embarrassment-threshold). But the moment he had finished doing this, he decided to absolutely ‘leg it’ back to the vestry. I don’t know what the extreme hurry was – perhaps it was the impending wedding – but I don’t think a man of ninety (and I think that’s an underestimation) should ever run that fast. Oh Lynn, sometimes I think this might be you up there having a laugh…