Report from the Home Front

What a strange week it has been. Day ten of quarantine for Miss F and me, and so far, so good. Aside for the odd snarling spat at each other, we have rubbed along remarkably well. I think this is because we are fortunate to have a house with enough rooms to escape to during the day, only coming together in the evenings to have dinner by the fire and watch Netflix.

We have a deal between us. We each get to choose a series and watch them an episode each in turn. Miss F is making me watch Gossip Girl which is everything I really hate about American television. Teenagers that are supposed to be sixteen but look thirty and all dress in expensive, designer clothes and never wear the same thing twice. They seem to have an endless source of money, hardly ever go to school and never get homework. But the amount of time they spend bitching about each other and jumping in and out of bed, to be honest I don’t know when they’d have the time for school or homework! Their parents are conspicuous by their absence, or at the very least have so little control over their promiscuous, precocious offspring they might as well not be there.

I really don’t enjoy these series, but at least this one doesn’t have vampires in it and Gossip Girl does have one huge plus going for it. It’s not Riverdale! That surely must take the award for the biggest pile of fetid dingo kidneys ever produced. I suffered nearly three seasons of this ridiculous pile of poo before rebelling and threatening to gouge my own eyes out with a teaspoon if I was forced to endure anymore. By this point, I think even Miss F was tiring of it, because she agreed to choose a different series without a murmur.

And what am I forcing her to watch in exchange, I hear you ask? Well, did you know that Netflix has all eleven seasons of the X-Files on there! That’ll make the long hours of isolation simply fly by. I haven’t seen the X-Files since it first aired and watching it again has made me realise two things. Firstly, how slow and creaky the first series is, and secondly, what an appallingly bad actor David Duchovny is. As wooden as a shed door, he delivers all his lines in the same nasally monotone and it’s no wonder he kind of sank without trace when the show ended. It’s equally no surprise that the fabulous Gillian Anderson went on to become a superb and well-respected dramatic actress. Even in her limited role as Scully her talent shines through, and the things that woman can do with her eyebrows are beyond belief.

What else have I been up to beside watching TV? Well, obviously I wasn’t feeling too great so had to take it steady. Lucky enough to only have it mildly, it nevertheless was unpleasant and left me exhausted and aching in every muscle. Still, I did manage to spring clean my bedroom which was a result, and I’ve washed all the woodwork in the hall, stairs and landing and hand swept the carpet to get up all the bits the vacuum cleaner simply doesn’t get.

During the past week, the weather here in the UK has been amazing, with clear blue skies and warm sunshine, so I’ve been out in the garden for a little bit every day to get my daily dose of vitamin D and some much needed fresh air and exercise. I’ve tidied, weeded, swept and moved plants. The next big job out there is to paint all my fences, but I’m going to wait until I’m fully recovered before tackling that. Also, this weekend the weather has taken a decided turn for the worse and it’s too cold to be outside for long.

Socially, I’ve spoken on the phone to my mother a few times and emailed friends to check they’re okay and swap news. Last week, my group of local authors and I attempted a mass meet up on-line. It was fun, even if our technology let us down at times with one or more of us suddenly disappearing or being unable to make themselves heard. But it was great seeing everyone and having a couple of hours of chat. Thursday evening, I hung out of an upstairs window and clapped to show my support of the NHS staff all working tirelessly and daily risking not only their own health but also that of their families. All my neighbours were on doorsteps and in windows, and it was great to be able to wave and shout greetings to them.

Yesterday all the residents on my street received a very distressing email that one of my neighbour’s brother had sadly died from Corona. This really brought it home and he is the first person that I know off who has died from it. More poignantly he was only 52, my age, and had no underlying medical conditions. United in our desire to do something to show our sympathy and solidarity we all emerged onto the street. Carefully observing at least eight foot between me and anyone else all the time, I went out as well, and we all stood there in the evening chill, clutching glasses of wine or bottles of beer and raised a glass to show our deepest respects. Calling out to one another our news and offering practical help in the form of collecting essential supplies or medicine to one another, it made me realise what a very special street I live on.

A passing council worker enquired what we were doing, but on being told it was a wake to show support for a neighbours bereavement, he bowed his head in sympathetic silence, reminded us to observe the social distancing rules and not to stay out too long, then went on his way. We stayed out for about thirty minutes, before the cold drove us back indoors.

Then last night I face timed with fellow authors Caroline Noe in London and Linda Gazani in California. Long time friends on social media, it was the first time we’d ever seen each other’s faces and we spent over two hours online chatting and giving each other much needed support and companionship, especially as both Carrie and Linda are in isolation completely alone.

This really made me wonder, what would we have done if this had happened pre-internet age? Even my own mother who used to believe the internet was the work of the devil, has been forced to admit that it has been a lifesaver for many during these strange days of quarantine and self-isolation. Can you imagine being stuck in your house, all alone, without the chance to email, text or facetime with your family and friends. And yes, maybe social media has its flaws, but for sheer connectivity to other communities around the globe it can’t be beaten and is saving peoples sanity.

As well, all those poor parents who’ve taken on the role of teacher to their young children. Imagine how much harder that would be without the online lessons provided by hardworking teachers who are busy working away at home preparing lessons and marking homework, all to keep up with the educational needs of the nation. I know my own cousin’s youngsters are benefiting from this and are quite enjoying their home schooling.

Wednesday morning, the animal centre at the West Suffolk College where Miss F is training, streamed a live, hour long tour of the facilities so you could meet all the animals from cheeky goats to cuddly bunnies and scary snakes. If you are home schooling, then this would be an invaluable lesson on animals and what they like to eat and give you a much -needed break from being teacher. The link is below to watch the video and there are plans for a live, streaming session every Wednesday at 11am GMT when you can ask the carers questions about the animals and really connect with them. I believe next week is going to be all about training animals.

There are lots of activities online if you look for them, and many actors are giving live readings from their own homes where they are in isolation. Plays, musicals, operas and ballets are all on there as well for free. Kindle Unlimited are also offering a free, two-month trial where you can read for free any of the thousands of books registered with them. I myself have five books on there – The Forest ~ a tale of old magic ~ – Becoming Lili – Chaining Daisy – Lifesong – and, Eclairs for Tea and other stories. So, if you’ve been wanting to try me on for size but were reluctant to spend any money in case I didn’t fit, well Kindle Unlimited is the perfect way to “try before you buy”. You can pick a book and read as much or as little of it as you want. If you don’t like the book, simply stop reading it. If you’re enjoying it, then read to the end. If you love it, then buy yourself a copy to have forever. If you don’t have an actual Kindle device then no problem, so long as you have either a smartphone or a tablet you can download the Kindle app for free so you can buy eBooks cheaply or even get them for free and never run out of reading material.

I’ve seen a few people stating that they’re not bothering to get washed and dressed, instead are spending days without number slumped on the sofa in their PJs watching endless TV. I simply can’t do that. The thought of staying in my PJs all day just fills me with horror. Every day I’m up reasonably early, washed, dressed, teeth cleaned, and hair brushed. I must admit though, I’m only bothering with make-up when I’m face-timing with friends and family. I have a large breakfast and plan my day, ticking off all the items that have been on my to-do list forever and that I simply never have the time to tackle. I’m determined to cross them all off. And if this isolation goes on for longer than we expect and I reach the end of my list, then it will be time to chill out and plough through my mile long to be read list, binge watch box sets, and maybe write another book (or two).

So how are you all holding up supply wise? Run out of toilet paper yet? We’re okay so far, the sensible stocking up I did before this all began is paying off in spades now. Last weekend, Miss F and I went through the freezer, fridge and cupboards making an inventory of every scrap of food there is in the house, then we made a menu plan for the first week. It barely scratched the surface of our supplies and we tried to be sensible with our rations.

I tend to save leftovers for future meals and drive Miss F crazy with my unique system for labelling these. Well, it’s unique in that I don’t bother to label anything. Nope, I always think I’ll know what’s in that bag or Tupperware box. Yeah, you can imagine how that works out. Picture me, bag of frozen something in hand, peering at it and muttering to myself – now what the heck are you? You look like spaghetti bolognaise, but I don’t know, I’m sure that looks like kidney beans in there and I’d never put kidney beans in a bolognaise!

In an attempt to eke out our supplies we decided to schedule these mystery meals for a couple of meals during the week. Accordingly, I got a bag of what I was pretty sure was beef stew out ready for Tuesday evening. As it defrosted, I looked at it occasionally and poked at it, yep, definitely beef stew, lovely. Anyway, evening came, I’d put potatoes in to roast to accompany it and could see bits of carrot and peas were already in the mix, but, when I put it in a pan to warm through I saw little flecks of green mixed in with the chunks of meat. Hmm? I tried a bit. Then went to report to Miss F.

“Change of plan for dinner.”

“Oh?” she looked at me suspiciously, knowing my leftover fails of old.

“It’s not beef stew.”

“Ok-a-ay, what is it then?”

“Minted lamb hotpot.”

“Result!”

And it was, a wonderful, delicious result. Next time I wasn’t so lucky.

When I make a lasagne, I always make an enormous one and then parcel it up into double portions wrapped in tinfoil and stack them in the freezer. So, I know with an absolute degree of certainty that if there’s a foil wrapped brick in the freezer, it will definitely, one hundred percent, be a delicious slice of homemade lasagne. During our inventory I’d noted there was one double portion of lasagne in the freezer, so I got it out for Thursday’s dinner with garlic bread and salad.

It defrosted. I put the salad together and put the garlic bread in to cook and unwrapped the “lasagne” ready to go in the microwave. It wasn’t lasagne! Miss F wandered into the kitchen drawn by the scent of cooking garlic bread and the expression on my face must have alarmed her.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s not lasagne.”

“What isn’t?”

“What I got out for dinner tonight, it isn’t lasagne.”

“Well, what is it then?”

“Chocolate cake!”

Not such a result, but I rootled about in the cupboard and found a big tin of chicken and vegetable soup which we had with garlic bread and a side salad, then we had chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream for afters and it was all good.

Maybe I should start labelling things, but where’s the fun in that?

Writing wise, all the edits and formatting on Erinsmore were completed last weekend and it has been safely uploaded to KDP and my proof copy ordered. It should be here by next Tuesday when I will have one last, thorough read through to check it’s all perfect. All being well, we’ll be looking at a launch date of next weekend.

I am beyond thrilled at how the new version of Erinsmore is looking. The cover is stunning and the 30 pages of illustrations inside make it a thing of beauty.

Also, this week, I formatted Lost & Found successfully into its new format and even managed to get the pagination all done first time – anyone who knows me knows that pagination is my nemesis. Lost & Found is with my editor for her to work her magic on it, and next week I’ll start preparing its sequel Fixtures & Fittings ready to be sent to her as soon as she’s done with Lost & Found. Miss F has also begun proof reading book three in the series for me, which I am surprisingly nervous about as she is the first person to read it other than me.

Finally, yesterday, I sat and put several items on eBay to clear the house of unwanted stuff and hopefully make a few pennies. Financially, things are a little tight right now, sure I’m getting 80% of my wages, but only my basic with a small percentage of expected commission on top, so nowhere near what I usually earn. I have been awarded a three-month mortgage holiday which is a relief, but that will need to be paid back at some time so will be an added stress to monthly finances once this is all over.

You can see I’ve had a busy week, and I’m happy with how productive and active I’ve been. I really think that’s the only way to stay sane and calm during these trying times. Having structure in your days and not just vegging out on the sofa all day and every day is a much healthier strategy.

Anyway, it’s getting late, it’s time to light the fire, pour myself a gin and tonic and see about making dinner. Tonight, it’s some fishfingers I found in a bag in the freezer, with mashed potatoes, fried onions and baked beans – at least, I think they’re fishfingers.

So, this is me signing off for another week and sending you best wishes from me in my home to you in yours.

Julia Blake

PS. Thank you to everyone who contacted me re my lack of Jamaican Ginger Cake. I am happy to report that a wonderful friend arranged to have two left on my doorstep along with a mini bottle of gin! Thank you, Rachel, you’re a star.

Plague, Poverty and no bloody Jamaican Ginger Cake! Oh, and Happy Mother’s Day!

So, that was a week wasn’t it. In my last blog, I said how uncertain things were and that I wondered what the future would bring, little imagining that in under seven days both Miss F and I would go down with the Corona Virus. Well, we think we have – a high temperature, exhaustion, headaches, achy joints and muscles, a tight chest and a cough that just won’t stop! Sounds like it, doesn’t it? But then, there are a 101 other things it could be. Better safe than sorry, I guess, and into isolation we went.

That was Wednesday. On Thursday we had our Tesco order finally delivered after waiting nearly a week for it and daily seeing so many things taken from our basket, substituted, put back in and taken out again, that by the time we were finally unpacking it we had no clue what was actually going to be in there.

No eggs, okay, we can manage without for a while. No toilet rolls, no surprise there, thank heavens I tend to stay well stocked with those anyway, so we have enough – for a while. No hand soap, it’s okay, we have bar soap, that will do. No pasta, ok, we have enough for a while if we eke it out. No pasta sauce or passata, I have tomato puree so can be inventive with that. Luckily, Tesco had thought outside the box substitution wise – no almond milk, have oat milk instead. No sliced bread, have a bloomer. I’d put a few treats in the basket to enliven an otherwise bland and spartan diet and had put a Jamaican Ginger Cake in, because we both love it. Well, apparently so does everybody else because they were sold out, we got Golden Syrup cake instead. Hmm, okay.

I did get an absolute blinder of a result. I’d slipped a tiny bottle of cheap gin into the basket and some Tesco bog standard tonic water. For heavens sake, a girl needs some treats. Yep, you’ve guessed it, my £7 bottle of gin was sold out, so they substituted it for a £20+ bottle of artisan Parma Violet gin, and my cheap tonic water was substituted for Fevertree posh stuff. Thank you very much, Tesco.

We certainly have enough for our two-week quarantine period, and, if we ration ourselves and plan our meals sensibly, enough for a couple of months of frugal living. Because we are going to have to be frugal now, very frugal. Friday evening, both Miss F and I found out that our companies are closing for the duration of the virus. That’s right, we are now unemployed for the foreseeable future.

Miss F was only working fifteen hours a week, so we don’t know if she’s entitled to any kind of compensation. Sure, they’ve assured her that her job will be waiting for her when they re-open, but no one seems to know how long that will be. My situation, as of course I am the sole breadwinner, is a lot more serious. My company has closed all of its stores as of next Wednesday. The government has promised to pay 80% of our wages for three months, my company have said they will dip into our holiday pay pot to make up the difference – not sure how I feel about that, but have no say in the matter.

However, before everyone starts rejoicing for me at having three months off on full pay, hold hard. The government are only paying 80% of our basic pay, not the commission we earn on top which changes our pay from subsistence to a living wage. Commission that we will no longer be getting. My basic pay is only about £600 a month. Think about that. Could you pay all your bills and eat on £600 a month?

Miss F and I held an emergency meeting this morning to plan our next move. Discussed were practical ways we can reduce our outgoings, so simple stuff like no lights or devices left on unnecessarily, be mindful of water and take showers every third day, save any unused water for the pot plants, it’s getting warmer so heating off unless absolutely essential (we have open fires and plenty of fuel), reduce the use of the washing machine and hang out clothes on the line whenever possible and not use the drier.

Meals are being reduced to two a day. A substantial brunch at 10:30am then a good dinner at 5:30pm, and not a scrap of food is to be wasted. We’re going to take a look at any subscriptions etc we currently have and cull where we can. Sorry, NowTV and Amazon Prime, but you’re for the chop. Finally, once our quarantine is over, we’ll go through the house with a fine toothcomb and sell anything that we can bear to part with – that’s if anyone is buying of course.

It’s daunting and scary and frightening how quickly our civilisation is being brought to its knees by a virus that still doesn’t seem that deadly. I hope the government does make good on all its promises to help, because the thought of a nation suddenly plunged into mortgage and rent arrears, starving and unable to pay their bills is horrific. I’m sure it won’t come to that, and you never know, maybe this will teach people again how to be thrifty and self-reliant. After all, we did it in the War. Millions of people survived on a lot less than we expect as our right now, perhaps we just need to re-discover that within ourselves.

I think families will be forced to reconnect with one another. If you’re stuck in the house for weeks on end be it through self-isolating or simply because there’s nowhere else to go, then you’re going to have to learn ways to get along without killing each other. Luckily, we have places in our home where we can go to have separate time from one another, otherwise it would turn into the night of the long knives.

In terms of self-reliance, I am better placed than Miss F in that I have so many things I want to do and up until now simply haven’t had the time to do them. Obviously, writing. If I haven’t produced at least one new book by the end of this period, then shame on me. But there’s also reading and reviewing, with twenty books in my physical to be read pile and about 200 on my Kindle, I really have no excuse to be bored. I’m also working on re-releasing Erinsmore and am in the process of giving it its final polish so watch this space for some exciting news about a publication date.

Next on the revamp list are books one and two in the Blackwood Family Saga – Lost & Found and Fixtures & Fittings – and they are currently with my editor. The third book has been written and it will also be going through the editorial stage. So, look out for publication dates for those. Finally, I will regain copyright for The Book of Eve in July so it too will need editing, reformatting and sprucing up for a re-release in August. As you can see, busy busy, lots of plans.

Aside from writing and bookish plans, I also want to deep spring clean my house from top to bottom. Like most busy working women, I tend to get by on a lick and a promise. I clean the bits that show and promise myself that one day I’ll do it properly. Well, one day is now here. Facing at least three months of time off, I have no more excuses. I can take my time, a room a week if I want, but at the end of this, if there ever is an end, I want a house so gleaming with love and attention that Kim and Aggie, those cleaning busybodies from that Nineties TV series could visit and I wouldn’t care.

There’s also the garden. It’s been thoroughly neglected for years because I never have the time to do anything about it other than keep on top of basic chores. My fences all desperately need painting and I’ve had the paint since the beginning of last summer, just never got around to doing it. No excuses now, as soon as the weather warms up a little and I’m feeling less like a worn-out dishrag, then I will be donning my old clothes and getting out there with a paintbrush and my Bluebell garden tones paint. Yes, you heard me, my fences will be blue. That alone is weeks of work and will have the added benefit of getting me outside in the sunshine and fresh air to get exercise and top up my Vitamin D levels.

But Miss F doesn’t have any such plans. Faced with the possibility of an even longer period of enforced house arrest than me as the colleges and schools have all now closed until September, possibly longer, and with no work to go to, no voluntary placement and no coursework (they’ve done their exams so it was just recap work they were doing anyway), she has been left rather adrift. To my comments that sitting around in her PJs for months on end playing video games is neither desirable nor healthy, she snapped at me. I’m afraid I may have to get tough with her. It is essential for her mental and physical well-being that there is structure to her days and definitely some fresh air and exercise in the mix. Perhaps I should force her to pick up a paintbrush with me, although I dread to think what a mess she’d make of it.

I guess we’ll be okay. No, we will be okay. I’ve weathered worse shit storms than this before and one thing I’ve learnt is that this too shall pass. Okay, it may pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass. In a few weeks, months or years, we will look back on this and we’ll all have our survival stories to tell of the terrible plague of 2020. There is some positive news out there. The cases of people contracting the virus in China seem to have slowed and there have been no deaths for two days. We are about three months behind them, so by June hopefully this will be at an end. I hope so, for all our sakes, I really hope so.

There’s news of a vaccine, although with the amount of testing they will have to do before it’s available to the general population I fear it’s a future preventative not an immediate cure. There are stories of the situation bringing out the absolute best in people with generous offers of aid and charity from people of wealth all the way down to next door neighbours helping each other out. I myself have benefitted from a friend dropping off eggs on my doorstep only this morning – thank you, Mary, I owe you big time.

But, sadly, it also seems to be bringing out the worse in some people as well. I’ve been sickened by stories and images of people fighting to get the last pack of pasta or toilet rolls, pushing elderly and sick people out the way and even taking their essential supplies from their baskets. It’s dreadful to think that in this time of global co-dependence and mutual need, that there are those who only seek to ensure their own well-being, taking more than their fair share and stealing from the vulnerable and needy. Come on guys, we need to stand together now more than ever, seriously, you want to behave that way over a packet of penne when you have a whole cupboard of the stuff at home? Don’t be that person, be better than that.

It’s growing late and it’s getting chilly. Although a sunny day outside, inside it’s definitely cold. Normally, I would have put the heating on but today we are merely piling on the layers and I’ve found a pair of woollen fingerless gloves to keep my hands warm enough to type. I feel very Bob Cratchett from A Christmas Carol, and it’s hard to explain but there’s almost a sense of not enjoyment – that is the wrong word – but satisfaction in knowing that we will cope, whatever happens, we will overcome it. Plans for the rest of the day include making a thorough inventory of all our supplies which we will then use to sensibly eke out and plan our daily menus. I need to bring in wood and coal and lay the fire for this evening and bring in the bedding from the line which will hopefully then only need five minutes in the drier to make sure it’s aired thoroughly.

Dinner tonight will be eaten by the fire with just a single lamp on and maybe a candle or two, with Netflix to entertain us. Yes, we’re keeping Netflix for the moment. At only £8 a month it represents good entertainment value and we need distraction of some kind or else we’d go mad and murder each other.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. A mysterious looking parcel arrive in the post this morning as Miss F ordered it before all this happened, but I won’t get a card, quarantine took her by surprise and she’s been unable to get one, which is fine. We have a fun afternoon scheduled tomorrow to celebrate of games by the fire and a nice dinner with a glass of something alcoholic for Mum.

It’s sad to think so many won’t be able to be with their mothers tomorrow. My own mother is in self-isolation due to being in the high-risk category, but I did leave her cards and flowers at the beginning of the week and I will speak to her on the phone.

I hope you are all well and safe. Wherever you are and however this virus is affecting your lives, please remember to be kind and treat others the way you would wish to be treated yourselves. Oh, and if anyone knows where I can procure some Jamaican Ginger cake, please let me know.

Julia Blake

What has happened to the world? As the reports flood in from too many countries to count now, it seems a small, inconsequential and localised illness that was far away in China, has suddenly become very real and very scary.

So far in Suffolk where I live there has only been one reported case of Covid-19, but I’m not naïve enough to believe that we will escape unscathed. Watching news reports from places like Northern Italy that are under complete lockdown, it was heartening to hear the residents singing to each other through open windows but worrying to think that we might be next. Although the thought of residents in Birmingham cheerfully serenading each other from bedroom windows is a lovely one, I somehow don’t think that’s how us Brits would react to house arrest.

And how do we in the West respond? Do we remain level and calm-headed? No. Do we think about our fellow man and only take our fair share of supplies? Also no. Panic buying on a mass scale not experienced since the countrywide strikes of the seventies has occurred, with people stockpiling items they consider to be essential should the worst occur, and we all have to self-isolate.

Self-isolate. Now there’s a prissy expression if ever I’ve heard one. Why not call it what it is, quarantine? Because that’s what it is. Going into quarantine to avoid spreading the latest plague to cull mankind. A lot of people I know have expressed a fervent wish that they could spend two weeks at home with no work, no school, no college and no physical interaction with anyone outside their own four walls. I must admit, the notion is attractive, and I know both Miss F and I could manage it just fine. Let’s face it, busy introvert that I am I could quite easily fill those two weeks with home and garden activities and wish for more time. But, that’s not to say I want it to happen.

Because if it did, if we were ordered into quarantine, that would mean it was because the virus had reached pandemic status in the UK and that truly is a frightening thought. It doesn’t seem that deadly a virus, yet. The statistics for survival are high, and with Miss F being only sixteen and healthy, and me being reasonably sound despite a few creaks here and there, I think we’d be okay. We don’t smoke or have any underlying immune issues that we’re aware of.

However, you need to look beyond the “I’m okay, Jack” attitude that seems sadly so prevalent. Yes, maybe you would be okay, but even though this virus isn’t particularly deadly, it is extremely contagious and that’s where the real danger lies.

Reports indicate that you can catch the virus and walk around for days, even weeks, without being aware you have it. You may very well feel fine, perhaps a slight cough or flu like symptoms, but not enough to raise the alarm, so off you pop to work, school, the shops, the hairdressers, the supermarket, all the while touching things and coughing, spreading the contagion even further, and maybe one of the people who catches it from exposure to you isn’t so young, fit and healthy. Perhaps they’re elderly, have diabetes or some other debilitating illness. Perhaps they have an undiagnosed heart condition, perhaps they’re on medication or treatment that has compromised their immune system. Suddenly, the “I’m alright, Jack,” attitude is more than just selfish, it’s deadly.

But what’s the alternative? I’ve seen a lot of posts on social media condemning the government for not ordering us all into quarantine now. I’m not sure that that is the answer though. All reports indicate that this virus won’t peak for another four to six months so maybe the government is wise to delay such a move until it’s absolutely necessary. After all, could you cope for six months trapped within your home? Although we have a good supply of food and essential toiletries, they wouldn’t last that long, and yes, I am aware we could order deliveries but like most British citizens, if I don’t work, I don’t get paid. The government has promised that we’ll all get statutory sick pay from week one of mandatory self-isolation, and the whole nation went yay, but most don’t realise that SSP is only about £3.50 per hour.

Think about that. £3.50 per hour. Could you live for long on that? Could you continue to pay your mortgage, your utilities and insurances on that? How about buying groceries? And what about paying for those Sky and Netflix subscription, because let’s face it, most people trapped in their homes for six months would resort to becoming couch potatoes desperate for entertainment and distraction.

It’s alright for members of parliament, living in their ivory towers with well stocked pantries and wine cellars, and access to savings and endless funds, but what about the rest of us. Who is going to pay for a whole nation being forced to live on sick pay? More importantly, who is going to keep the country running? If we’re all cowering in our homes surrounded by 300 rolls of toilet paper and enough rice to feed a small Asian country, who is going to be running our hospitals, our factories and our emergency services? Who is going to be running the powerplants and water treatment plants?

Maybe the government is right to keep things going for as long as possible, because I do wonder when the Chinese and the Italians and all the other countries that have adopted extreme lockdown measures emerge, what will happen? I have a strong suspicion that the virus will simply return, and it will all have been for nothing.

Am I panicking? To be honest, no. At the moment it all feels very surreal and a bit fantastical. I listen to the news, none of it good, yet all around me life is continuing as normal. We’re still going to work and college, I’m still going to the shops – not stockpiling, I hasten to add, just normal essential shopping – and things are jogging along as they always do.

Will it hit us? Will we be quarantined? Will anyone I know catch it? Will we catch it? Will anyone I know die from it? These are all questions that I know I won’t be alone in asking, but the answers seem up for grabs in that no one knows with any certainty what will happen. Will it be like Swine Flu again – remember that? All that panic and then it fizzled away into nothing. Unless the virus mutates again into an even more virulent strain, I don’t think we’re looking at a pandemic on the scale of the Spanish Influenza that swept over the globe after the First World War. Killing almost one third of the population, it was one of the deadliest pandemics we’ve had since the Black Death.

Even if the virus does mutate, we are still in a much better position that we were then. Medicine has come a long way since 1919, we have instant communication around the world and understand far more about the spread and containment of infection. Most people are stronger and healthier than they were then. Newly emerged from a debilitating and crippling world war, people were malnourished and vulnerable and could offer little or no resistance to the virus.

So, we wait, and see, and that’s really all any of us can do. Sure, be prepared. I’ve made sure we have enough basic food stuffs and toiletries to see us through a month, I’ve also picked up a months-worth of my hayfever medication, figuring it’s not a good idea to be wheezing and struggling to breathe anyway AND catch a dose of Corona. My edict has been – Be Sensible. Not Greedy.

In other health news, Miss F is being tested for asthma. She’s been plagued by an annoying, persistent cough for months now and initial tests show she has a reduced lung capacity. The doctor seems unsure what it is, with options ranging from long term lung congestion to asthma, so twice a day she has to blow into a breath recording device and chart the results. We’re also waiting for an appointment with a dermatologist to get a mole on her back examined. It appears to have grown and changed in texture and is bleeding colour into the surrounding skin. It’s not cancer. The doctor assures us in one so young with no genetic history of cancer, that there’s a less than 1% chance of it being malignant. Still, you don’t muck about with moles so I’m pushing for it to be examined sooner rather than later.

I had a blood test last week and have an appointment for a follow up consultation next Wednesday. I know they’re going to tell me my anaemia has worsened, I think they’re going to tell me my vitamin D deficiency hasn’t improved and I have a sneaking suspicion they’re going to confirm my calcium levels have dropped again.

With these more immediate, closer to home, medical shenanigans, is it any wonder I’m not worrying about the corona virus yet?

A shorter blog this week. I’m tired and a bit downhearted and lacking in things to say. I hope next week to have more positive things to write about, but for now can only say that I hope wherever you are in the world you are well and healthy. Stay safe, my friends.

Julia Blake

Wetwang Welcomes Careful Drivers!

Good morning! Hope you’ve all had a great week. Mine has been uneventful apart from commencing work on re-editing and formatting Erinsmore and having to go to the hospital for a blood test. Although, that was a little bit traumatic. Despite stabbing both my arms multiple times it proved impossible to get any blood out of me – think I must be dead – so they had to take it from my hand, which was uncomfortable and has caused my hand to swell and bruise rather nastily. Treated myself afterwards to a frothy coffee and an enormous butterscotch and pecan Danish pastry for being ever such a brave girl.

So, last week, where did I leave you? Oh yes, I was falling asleep on the first night in our holiday cottage up in Yorkshire, listening to the rain hammering down on the skylight and hoping things would get better and that it would at least stop raining. Well, when I awoke next morning after sleeping like the dead – I was in my old bed after all – (anyone who didn’t read last week’s blog might want to pop back and quickly do so, it’s okay, I’ll wait) – and because I’d had a reasonably early night after the journey from hell to reach our destination – when a three-hour journey takes nine hours it takes a toll on you – I woke up early at 6:30am feeling rested and refreshed.

We had planned to go to nearby Castle Howard for the day, but when I opened my eyes the rain was still pounding down and sounded set to last, so I hastily rearranged plans in my head. I’m one of those people whom when I’m awake, I’m awake, and can’t lay in bed doing nothing. I thought about reading for a bit, but was itching to be up and doing stuff, and I was desperate for a cup of tea, so I quietly got up, washed and dressed. Trying to not make any noise in an echoey, open-plan cottage was a bit tricky, and I soon heard Miss F moving about as I was trying to get out a mug and put the kettle on without waking her.

Deciding she was also wide awake and famished, an early breakfast seemed in order and then we’d plan what to do with our first day. Nothing else would do but a full English, so I set the bacon to grill and went to put hash browns in the oven. No baking trays, not one. Putting them on a Pyrex lasagne dish, I noticed there seemed a dearth of cooking equipment full stop, and not even being able to find a frying pan, we had to have our eggs poached instead of fried. Hmm, bit of a nuisance.

The rain was still belting down, so we donned our waterproof jackets and stout shoes and drove the five minutes down the road to the park and ride carpark for York. Now, I love park and ride. If you’re going into a large city for a look around, lunch and maybe a light bit of shopping, then why would you try to drive in, find a parking space and pay an outrageous amount for the privilege. No, park and ride all the way. Only costing us £3.50 to park our car for the day and pay for bus fares for us both into the city centre and back seemed an absolute bargain.

I know York very well. I’ve been there countless times and in fact the last holiday Miss F and I had had was five years previous when we’d rented a house in the heart of the city and spent the whole week exploring everything York has to offer, which is a lot. So, when the bus dropped us off, I knew exactly where we were and how to get to where we wanted to go. It was still early, only 9:00am and we were the first people into the Castle Museum. If you ever get a chance to go to York, I can’t recommend paying the Castle Museum a visit highly enough. It offers amazing value for money, bear in mind this was five years ago but it only cost £10 for us both, plus I’d made sure I had a good supply of 10p pieces as there are a variety of wonderful old slot machines. For a mere 10p you can watch the last rites of a convicted prisoner standing on the gallows, then the wonderful moment when the trapdoor opens beneath his feet and he hangs over the gap to an accompanying mournful bell. Deliciously ghoulish.

The Castle Museum is a museum about people and life. There are room sets showing you the living space of a family in Tudor times, Regency England, Victorian times, the time of the Coronation of Elizabeth II and a cosy looking crofter’s cottage. There are exhibits about household appliances through the ages, the history of birth, death and marriage, familiar products and medicines. Childhood toys through the ages, clothing, employment and leisure facilities. All crammed together in an eclectic and mind-blowing random assortment, it is fascinating and fun, and the absolute best way to spend the first day of a rain-soaked holiday.

There is even a reconstructed Victorian street in the heart of the museum, complete with a stuffed horse pulling a hansom cab. There are old shops you can go into, and there was a workshop going on in the old sweetshop. We had a go at making peppermint creams which we were able to take away with us, yum. Wandering around the street, taking our time, peering into all the windows, the museum was beginning to fill up a bit and we no longer had the place to ourselves.

A gentleman in authentic Victorian working man clothes approached us and asked if Miss F would care to be a temporary rat catcher. He had been paid by the city to catch rats, he explained, and if she would help him, she would get three gold coins for every rat she found. As the gold coins were of course chocolate ones, she eagerly agreed to help and dragged me off to look for rats. A frustrating ten minutes later she was in despair, when I suggested checking out the rather scary looking public conveniences, because if rats were going to be found anywhere, it was there. Scrabbling around in the dark corners, she gave a crow of triumph and pulled out a fine looking, big black rubber rat and we went to look for the rat catcher so she could collect her reward.

Afterwards, we wandered out to visit the reconstructed eighteenth century mill they have in the grounds of the museum, and discovered it had stopped raining, the sun had come out and it was showing promise of being a nice day. We sat down on a bench in the sun so Miss F could eat her wages. She looked at the empty wrappers.

“I wish I’d kept the rat now,” she murmured. “He was a very nice rat.”

When we finally left the museum at almost three in the afternoon – nearly six hours entertainment for £10, what value for money! – we agreed we weren’t hungry, just peckish. A French patisserie close to the museum seemed perfect, and Miss F was soon happily consuming a mug of hot chocolate and a piece of cake the size of her head, whilst I contented myself with a big frothy coffee and a cheese scone.

The streets had dried up, it was a lovely afternoon, so we walked off our treats and looked in the windows, taking our time and enjoying not having to be anywhere or do anything. We did a little shopping, some treats we fancied and a couple of things I’d forgotten to bring, then wandered back to the bus stop. There was an Argos store opposite and I took the opportunity to buy a frying pan and baking tray, to use whilst in the cottage and to take home with us because we did need new ones.

Then we caught the park and ride home. Back at the cottage, we opened the backdoor to let the evening in and Miss F went to the fence to say hello to the sheep that were mooching about in the field at the bottom of the garden. I heard her chattering away and assumed she was talking to the sheep, then suddenly there was a little girl at the back door with her asking if Miss F could go and swim in their pool, followed swiftly by the owner of the cottage who’d been looking out for us to return so she come and enquire about our journey and check we’d settled in okay. Confirming that they did indeed have a pool and Miss F was welcome to come and play in it with her own children, Miss F dashed off to get into her swimming costume and I made coffee for us.

The owner was lovely, very open and friendly. As we drank, I unpacked the day’s purchases to put away and she looked surprised when she saw the frying pan and baking tray. Explaining that I hadn’t been able to find either that morning, it was my turn to be surprised when she showed me a “secret” drawer at the base of the cooker filled with every type of cooking tin, tray and pan I could ever need. Boy, did I feel stupid.

She left, I prepped dinner, then poured myself a glass of wine and settled down in the small garden with a book to enjoy the evening and wait for Miss F to come home. Birds twittered in the blue sky above, the sheep looked at me and chatted amongst themselves, the sun was warm on my face, my wine was very cold and very crisp, and the book was interesting. What more could anyone want?

We ate dinner, watched TV and played some games, then Miss F went to bed and I watched a film on TV – with the sound off and the subtitles on, of course – although I kept nodding off and missing bits. And that was the first day.

The next day dawned gloriously sunny with a wonderful blue sky and the promise of a fine, summer day. We had breakfast and I packed us a picnic. We were off to Castle Howard. A mere ten-minute drive away, Castle Howard is one of the largest stately homes in Britain and is absolutely beautiful. Set in acres of garden and parkland, with lakes and water features, there is enough to keep you busy for a whole day, which is why I packed a picnic. If it looks familiar, it’s because it’s where the TV drama “Brideshead Revisited” was filmed in the late eighties, and as we drove down the long driveway and the house came into view I kept humming the theme music, until Miss F threatened to stay in the car if I didn’t stop.

We spent a whole wonderful day there. Luckily, Miss F and I like doing the same things and exploring old and historical places always makes us happy. We found a wonderful space under a tree by the river to eat our picnic and walked miles around the parkland, before driving home in the late afternoon to find a little girl sitting on our doorstep waiting for Miss F to come and play.

Giving her permission to go and have fun with her new friend, I unpacked the car and tidied away our picnic stuff, wondering what to do about dinner, when suddenly Miss F was back with an invitation from the owner and her family to go over for a barbecue. What a lovely surprise that was. I took over some wine, and spent a very pleasant and chill evening, eating and drinking and chatting with the family and their lovely friends, whilst Miss F ran about with a hoard of children and dogs and had a marvellous time. And that was our second day.

Monday dawned, and the weather was not quite so hot but still nice, so we decided to do a proper beach day and drove to nearby Scarborough. Again, park and ride, because why not? When you’re a stranger to an area it makes sense instead of trying to find somewhere to park and getting stressed out about it. Scarborough is a lovely, traditional British seaside resort famous for its waffles. I hadn’t brought a picnic as I didn’t want to carry it around with me and I knew there’d be plenty of food there for us to forage on.

There was Punch & Judy on the beach, which we watched while eating massive Mr Whippy ice creams with a chocolate flake of course. There were donkey rides and Miss F begged for a go. Even at only 12 she was a tall girl and her feet practically dragged on the sand. I felt sorry for the donkey.

We walked with out feet in the ocean, dangling our shoes by their laces, then had to sit in the sun until our feet had dried and try to brush all the sand off from between our toes. We ate seafood on the seafront and had a portion of chips between us, hot and squishy, with lots of salt and enough vinegar that it formed a puddle in the bottom of the tray. We walked all the way along the front, then turned around and walked all the way back. We ate candy floss, well, Miss F did, I can only ever abide a taste of it as it’s so sweet. Bit like sugar infused loft insulation. The seagulls wheeled and cried overhead, and music pumped from every arcade. Tempted into one by the bright lights and ringing bells, I changed some money and we played on the Tuppence Shove, rolling our 2ps down the slots to try and knock down the big piles teetering on the edge.

Finally emerging the losers, we found during the hour we’d been in there that the skies had clouded over and it was getting dark. Only dressed in light, beach clothing we shivered and even though it was only 3pm I made the executive decision to start heading for home. We still had a way to walk back to the park and ride, then had to wait for a bus, and then it would be almost an hour’s drive back to the cottage. It got colder and colder, Miss F was shivering in shorts and a thin t-shirt, so I wrapped my jacket around her, and we practically ran the last bit, reaching the bus stop just as a bus pulled in.

Safely back in the car, I was indicating to turn out of the carpark when the heavens opened. Monsoon season again, the wipers were working overtime and the car steaming up as I desperately turned the heating up on the windscreen full blast to try and clear the condensation.

Back home, Miss F went off to have a shower and get changed whilst I made us dinner, then we settled down to another evening of TV and games as the rain once again lashed down outside. And that was the third day.

Next day the weather had turned foul. The sky was black and heavy, dense rain was pounding down. A day trip anywhere was out of the question, so we once again pulled on warm clothing, sensible shoes, waterproof jackets and caught the park and ride into York. I’d exchanged some Tesco loyalty shopping vouchers into tickets for the Jorvik Viking Centre in the centre of York, and a cold, rainy day seemed the perfect time to use them. It was early, and luckily the queue for it wasn’t too long and was still under the protective awning. I have seen the queue snake all the way around the building and back again and had warned Miss F if it was that long we’d have to go and do something else. After a ten-minute wait we were in.

Remember how I told you what good value the Castle Museum is – £10 for six hours entertainment. Well, the Jorvik Viking Centre isn’t. Over £30 for the two of us to get in – thank heavens for Tesco vouchers, and we were in there for about 90 minutes. Yes, it’s interesting, and the highlight of the experience is climbing into these mechanised carts which then take you back in time to a reconstructed Viking street, complete with waxworks inhabitants, sounds and even smells. Ahh, the heady aroma of an eighth century latrine pit, lovely. But that only takes about twenty minutes and even with taking our time over every exhibit and looking at everything, it was still only coming up for eleven when we emerged into a cold, dark day. The streets were flooded, the rain was hammering down in Biblical proportions. Any moment I expected to see an ark go floating by. It really was horrible, and all around were miserable and soaked tourists, not dressed adequately and shivering in the cold.

I’d also swapped some Tesco vouchers for meal vouchers to use in Bella Italia restaurants, and deciding an early lunch was in order, we splashed off to find one. Despite being early, when we found it there were hardly any tables left but being only two of us the stressed looking waitress squeezed us in on a little table in the corner by the front window. So, we could watch the rain pound down and drenched people hurrying by clutching their umbrellas.

We were both hungry and I’d exchanged lots of vouchers as this was to be our main treat meal of the week. Miss F chose a big burger with all the works and I went for a steak and all the trimmings, requesting it be rare, as rare as possible.

We waited a long time for our food, they seemed to be short staffed and the whole restaurant by now was crammed to capacity. When our food came, Miss F’s looked delicious, but my steak was the colour and consistency of an old shoe. I poked at it. Miss F looked horrified.

“That steak looks horrible, mummy.”

“Yeah, it does look a bit tough, they’ve overcooked it.”

“Are you going to complain? Get them to make you another one.”

I looked around the restaurant. Our waitress was currently being given a hard time by a group of four people who’d walked in and wouldn’t believe that she couldn’t just “squeeze them in somewhere”. She seemed to be the only waitress on duty, and other tables were demanding the poor woman’s attention. Everyone’s tempers fraying due to the bad weather.

“No, it’s fine,” I decided. “I’ll just eat what I can.”

I ate everything else on the plate. The fries were good, as were the mushrooms, onions rings, grilled tomato and salad. It was just the steak I couldn’t eat. So tough I couldn’t even cut a piece off, I gave up on it. Miss F couldn’t finish all her chips and peas, so I helped her out.

When the waitress eventually came back to collect our plates, she looked at the abandoned steak, curled up on the plate like an old flipflop that had been left too long in the sun.

“Oh, your steak.”

“Yeah, sorry, I tried but I couldn’t even cut it, let alone eat it.”

“You ordered it rare, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

She poked at the steak and pulled a face.

“That doesn’t look very rare, more cremated. Why on earth didn’t you send it back? We’d have done you another one.”

I shrugged. “You looked like you had enough on your plate, and it’s fine. I ate everything else, so I’ve had enough to eat.”

“We’ve got two chefs and three waitresses off with this wretched flu thing that’s doing the rounds, so things are a bit crazy in here today,” she admitted, and cleared our table and went to get the bill, taking my vouchers with her.

When she came back, I was stunned to find she’d only charged me for our drinks – both our meals not appearing on the bill.

“You were so nice about it,” she said, handing our vouchers back to me. “Not many people would have been so understanding, so thank you. At least now you can have another meal with your vouchers.”

It just goes to show, sometimes having a little patience and empathy for the other side of the picture, can reap its own rewards. Although, I did leave a bigger tip than I intended.

It was only 2pm but it was as black as pitch outside. The temperature had dropped drastically, and the streets were flooded with running streams of water. We decided to go home. Once back in the cottage, we changed out of our wet things and I lit the wood burner and the candles that were dotted about. Miss F found Lord of the Rings on Sky movies and we settled down in our cosy haven with the sound of the rain lashing down outside and the comforting pop and crackle of the fire inside. Not being very hungry, we snacked it for dinner and watched movies until it was time to go to bed. And that was the fourth day.

Next day I’m happy to say with the typical capriciousness of the British weather all the nasty rain had gone, the sky was once again blue, and the temperature had risen – promising a balmy summer day. In the cottage were several leaflets about local places of interest and we’d picked out a Tudor manor house called Burton Agnes to explore. Once again, I packed a picnic and we set out in high spirits to see what adventures awaited. It was about a 45-minute drive and on the way, we drove through some beautiful countryside and villages, including Stamford Bridge, which given our love of history we found very interesting. For those of you unfamiliar with British history, Stamford Bridge is where the Vikings invaded in 1066, aided and abetted by the king’s brother who believed he should be on the throne and not his brother Harold. King Harold had to march his men all the way up to Stamford Bridge, where he thrashed his treacherous brother’s arse in a major battle. His men were exhausted, but when the shock news came that the Normans had invaded all the way down on the South coast, Harold had no choice but to march his battle knackered men all the way back down and throw them immediately into battle against William the Bastard of Normandy.

Of course, Harold lost, but it does make you wonder. If his brother and the Vikings hadn’t invaded or hadn’t chose that particular time to invade. Harold and his men would have been fresh and ready for their battle against the Normans at Hastings and they probably would have won. The Norman conquest of 1066 would never have happened, and Britain would have stayed under Anglo-Saxon rule. Everything would have been different. Makes you think, doesn’t it, how the fate of millions can rest on the decision of one man.

We drove on, enjoying our journey, but as we left one village, I happened to notice the village sign.

“What was that? What was this village called?”

“Wetwang, mummy. It’s called Wetwang.”

I nearly drove the car off the road. What a brilliant name. Of course, technically it’s not rude, but it really sounds like it should be.

We reached Burton Agnes and parked the car. A beautiful Tudor manor house set in acres of quirky gardens and woodlands, there was a giant chess board and other games to play in the grounds. The house was interesting and there were woodlands to wander around with lots of interesting wooden sculptures on display by a local artist, including a whole family of wooden owls of varying sizes peering out of the branches of a tree.

There was a pretty water feature with some unusual modern artwork in the middle of it, and an ancient apple orchard with picnic benches where we sat and ate lunch. A lovely little gift shop was worth a poke about and we bought presents for grandparents and some homemade sweets for us. And that was the fifth day.

Next day was our last day, so we set off early for the hour-long drive to the coastal town of Whitby. The drive was magnificent through the purple heather moors and my little Nissan became like the little engine who could as we chuffed our way up one steep hill – with Miss F threatening to get out and push – flew down the other side, and then did it all over again.

Again, park and ride, and we arrived in Whitby just as the town was opening up to visitors. We poked about the old shops and found a second-hand book shop where we spent some time and pennies. We clambered up the hill to the abbey and admired the view, before coming all the way back down again. We wandered down to the harbour and saw a boat advertising trips around the harbour. Miss F wanted to do it, so we did, and a pleasant hour was spent cruising around the headland. Landing back at the harbour, we both realised we were starving and that a decision had to be made. Have an ice cream and a late lunch or admit defeat and find somewhere nice for lunch now, even though it was only 11am.

Lunch now, we decided, and headed back to a quirky looking café we’d seen called The Magpie that offered a great looking seafood menu. Not realising how popular it is and what a tourist attraction it is, we slipped in because it was only 11am and there were only two of us so we could be squeezed into a little table in the corner of the window. I was surprised how full it was already, then turned my attention to the ten-page menu – all fish and seafood and all looking fantastic – while the friendly waitress went to get our drinks.

“Look, mummy,” Miss F hissed. “Look outside.”

I looked outside. A queue a good ten-foot long was now stretching away from the front door of people eager to get in for lunch. I looked around the packed restaurant, “good luck” I thought smugly and sipped at the one glass of wine I was allowing myself – after all, it was our last day, I’d be eating a lot and not driving for a good few hours – and carried on perusing the menu.

If ever you find yourself in Whitby and you like fish and seafood, I can’t recommend the Magpie enough. Unpretentious, friendly and reasonably priced. It’s all about the food, and the fish is fresh, as locally sourced as possible and beautifully cooked. But go early or be prepared to wait.

After our wonderful long lunch, we mooched about a bit, then headed back to the park and ride, mindful of the hour drive back and the fact we had to pack and clear the whole cottage that evening. I was also painfully aware we were facing that drive home in the morning, and I will be honest, I really wasn’t looking forward to it. Nine hours to get here. How many was it going to take to get home?

Back at the cottage, we set to together and sorted and packed as much as we could into the car ready for the morning. Not very hungry after our mega lunch, we finished off all the snacky things we had left, leaving ourselves exactly what we needed for breakfast. One last film on Sky movies, and then we both turned in for an early night. And that was the sixth and last day.

Next morning it was fine and dry, not too hot and not too cold. Relieved at all the packing we’d done the night before, we had breakfast, did a last trawl through the cottage to make sure nothing had been forgotten – I’m a sod for forgetting charging wires – and we were on the road by 8:30am, leaving a nice bottle of wine, some chocolates and a warmly worded thank you card on the kitchen table for the lovely owners who’d made us feel so welcome.

It was an amazing drive home. The roads were clear, and we hit Bury St Edmunds just after eleven, unable to believe how different it had been to our hellish journey up. We’d had a wonderful holiday. Maybe to some my reports of bad weather and freakish rainstorms sound nightmarish, but we dealt with them and found things to amuse us and simply being together and not having to rush or obey strict routines made it a real break. Having the time to wander about and play games, and even just watch films by a roaring fire and candlelight was a treat.

When I consider how little the holiday costs me – the accommodation was free, I used about £50 worth of petrol during the whole week, Tesco vouchers paid for entry to the Jorvik Viking Centre and our meal in Bella Italia ( and we actually brought those home with us again). Yes, we paid for entry to Castle Howard and Burton Agnes – but Miss F was still a child, so it wasn’t too bad and provided us with two days-worth of entertainment. And yes, we spent money on food, but we would have had to eat at home anyway and I brought most of it with us. By taking picnics where we could and restricting buying food and drink out, we saved money, and I still had £200 left over from the sale of my bed which paid for everything.

We both have wonderful memories from that holiday, and still talk about it fondly, and that is the mark of a truly superb vacation.

Hope you’ve enjoyed going on holiday with us, and I’ll catch up with you all next week.

Julia Blake

This is the Road to Hell… Part 2

A couple of weeks ago, I told you about one of the worst holidays we ever had, so I thought this week I will tell you about one of the best. We’ve not had many holidays, Miss F and I, mostly due to lack of funds, but also because holidays are not much of a break for me. In order to take time off work, I always had to work extra hard to get everything up to date, knowing that when I got back, I’d have to work extra hard to catch up. Also, I was the sole expedition organiser and leader, meaning I was responsible for planning where and when we were going, I had to pay and make all the arrangements. I was going to be the one doing all the driving. I was responsible for making sure all our clothes were washed and packed. I was also the one who would have to clean the house from top to bottom and get up to date on laundry before we left. Miss F once commented:

“I don’t know why you’re so obsessed with getting the house all clean and tidy before we go away. If a burglar breaks in while we’re gone, I don’t suppose they’ll care how dirty the house it.”

“No, I make sure it’s all clean and tidy because when I get back off holiday I don’t want to then have to turn around and clean the house before going back to work.”

We’ve also tended to stick to holidays in the UK. Again, lots of reasons for this. I hate flying. I hate the whole painful rigmarole of airports. My ears go funny when I fly and take days to right themselves. When you’re only having a week’s holiday, to lose two days travelling and feel ill for pretty much the rest of the time seems like a bit of a waste. There are some lovely places in the British Isles to holiday. We can go self-catering so I know there’ll be food that Miss F will eat. If we went on holiday abroad, funds would dictate we would have to share a hotel room, and while Miss F was small and going to bed early, what would I do in the evening once she was asleep? Sit and read and drink in total silence for fear of waking her up, trapped in the room all evening because no way would I leave her alone in a hotel room. At least, in a holiday let in the UK there’d be separate bedrooms from the lounge, so I’d be able to watch TV. Most holiday lets come with some sort of outdoor space, so I’d be able to sit outside and enjoy the balmy evenings. Finally, again, I would be the sole grown-up in charge of the whole expedition.

I had a friend who was a travel junkie. A self-processed sufferer of wanderlust, she was always off to some exotic corner of the world, and when she found herself unexpectedly pregnant did not see any reason why having a tiny baby should change her plans. She once said to me:

“I don’t know why you’re so dead set against going abroad with Miss F. I mean, you’re a sensible person, I know you could cope with any emergency like her getting ill or hurt.”

“Yes, I know I could cope if anything should happen to her. But, how would she cope if anything should happen to me?”

And, as far as I was concerned, that was the whole crux of the matter. Yes, I knew I could cope should Miss F fall ill or be injured. But, what about if I fell ill or even died for some reason. The thought of my little girl, alone, in a foreign country where she knew no one and couldn’t speak the language, with a sick or even dead mother. No. The very thought was enough to make me shudder. We’d stick to holidays in the UK thanks, at least if anything happened to me Miss F could ask for help and my parents were only a car journey away.

Anyway, so when 2015 came around we hadn’t been on holiday for several years. Well. I hadn’t been on holiday. Miss F had had several nice school trips and there had been the odd day out, but as far as a proper, pack your cases, load up the car, we’re going away for at least a week, type of holiday, it must have been at least five years since we’d had one.

Anyway, how we came to have this holiday is quite an interesting story. It was early in the year, probably about March, I was sitting in bed one morning having a cup of tea and looking around my bedroom. It hadn’t been decorated in years and was beginning to look very tired and dated. I need to decorate, I thought, but how could I, with this enormous bed in the way?

Now, this bed was one I’d had many years and was one I’d bought when I was still with my first husband. A genuine Victorian wrought iron and brass bed, it was a thing of sturdy, Gothic magnificence, but it was enormous! Five foot in width and about seven foot in length it dominated the room and decorating around it was going to be a nightmare. Even dismantled, this bed would still be a sizeable pile of ironware. And it was then that the plan occurred to me. Sell the bed. I thought I’d probably get quite a lot for it as it was a genuine antique, then with the money I made decorate my bedroom as I wanted it and buy a smaller bed. After all, there was just me in it, I didn’t need a king size bed, a double one would be ample, and it would give more room in my bedroom. We have a small single spare room that I was quite happy to camp out in while all this was going on.

So, I put the bed plus the mattress, the electric blanket, the mattress protector and two king size duvets on eBay for £700 and waited to see what would happen. Nothing did. There was a bit of interest, but no one placed any bids. So, I dropped the price to £600. Bit more interest then and a few more enquiries about it, and several people were watching it. Then I received a very interesting email from someone.

“Hi there, I’m really interested in the bed, but I can’t quite manage £600. It’s to go in a holiday cottage we’ve just finished renovating and all the money I’ve got left to spend on a bed is £500. Would you be prepared to accept this and a week’s stay for free in the cottage?”

Well, this was unexpected. I thought about it, my excitement growing. Steady, I cautioned myself.

“I might be, whereabouts is the cottage?”

“It’s in a little village ten miles outside of York.”

Now I love York, I’ve been there lots of times and know how amazing it is, plus the Yorkshire Dales are beautiful.

“Here’s the link to take a virtual tour of the cottage. Let me know what you think.”

What did I think? The cottage was gorgeous, and the deal seemed too good to be true. I was still getting £500 for the bed, more than enough to pay for some paint and wallpaper, and I’d seen the new bed I wanted on eBay for £100 so there would be cash left over to save for spending money.

The deal was struck, she paid for the bed, I closed the auction once the money hit my bank account, and she arranged for a courier service to pick it up. Then, when Miss F got home from school, I told her the wonderful news that like all her friends, we too would be going away on holiday after all that year.

We went in August, by a coincidence the day we travelled up was Miss F’s twelfth birthday and she was wildly excited as I packed the car up early that morning. I wanted to avoid the rush hour, so we had a good breakfast and left at 10am. Google maps had promised us it would take about three hours. The car had been serviced and had a full tank of fuel. It was a chilly but bright day and our spirits were high as we drove onto the A14 heading North.

Our good mood didn’t last long. The sky got progressively darker the further north we travelled, before long the heavens had opened and torrential rain of monsoonal properties was battering the roof of the car. Traffic got slower and slower, grinding to complete standstills sometimes, before crawling forward a few more feet. It got worse. The weather got worse. By the time I finally crawled onto the M1 and the motorway went into three lanes, I was seriously wondering about getting off at the next junction and simply going home.

Sitting there in my tiny Nissan Micra, the rain belting down from a black sky, with lorries in front, behind and on both sides of me, it felt like the end of the world, and I couldn’t believe that we’d waited years to have this holiday only to experience this kind of weather in August and this kind of traffic on a Friday morning.

We sat stationary for almost an hour. I had no idea what was happening up ahead and there was nothing I could do about it. We couldn’t go forward and we couldn’t go back. We’d lost reception on the radio so resorted to guessing games to pass the time. Nothing was said, but I was getting hungry and I needed the loo, so I knew it wouldn’t be long before Miss F was complaining about the same issues.

Eventually, the traffic started moving again. We started looking for roadside cafes or service stations, anywhere that had toilets and sold food. We saw signs for an American Diner up ahead, great we thought. But when we approached, we could see a line of people standing outside in the pouring rain waiting to get a table. Nope, I declared, and on we drove.

By now it was almost 3:00pm, we’d been on the road for five hours and were still on the M1. We drove on. It carried on raining, harder than ever now. Our stomachs rumbled and our bladders protested. I knew we had to stop soon, but where? There just didn’t seem to be anywhere.

Finally, at the roundabout junction where we had to leave the M1 and take an A road heading towards York we saw signs for a service station. Not caring what it was, I pulled off the road and we parked the car. Dashing through the foot-deep puddles we were soaked by the time we staggered into the covered food hall and I could feel cold water seeping between my toes. Great.

But, first things first, we dashed to the ladies only to find – of course – a mile long queue. Nothing for it, we had to wait in legs crossed agony – now we were standing up, gravity was doing its part. Finally, we reached the top of the queue. Having sorted out that need, we now looked to our next one. Food. Please can we have a Burger King, asked Miss F, seeing as we’re on holiday. Quite frankly, if she’d had suggested slow roasted aardvark, I’d have been up for it at that point. The queue for Burger King was even longer than the queue for the loo. We looked at each other. Then spotted a little M&S shop next to it. Grabbing a basket, we loaded it up with ready cooked BBQ chicken wings, crisps, sandwiches and cake. I tried to keep things healthy by picking up some fruit pots, even though I knew the chances of Miss F eating them were slim.

We splashed back to the car and sat there with the windows steamed up glumly munching our lunch/dinner as the rain sloshed down. Sitting there, I was taken back to when I was a child, and days out with my parents, when we’d sit in the car parked at some seaside resort or other, staring morosely out at the rain belting down, munching on sandwiches, with my mother sporadically chiming in with – I’m sure it’ll clear up soon – and my father’s mood worsening because, quite frankly, he’d rather have been anywhere and doing anything else than this.

Lunch over, we set off again. By now I was so sick of being in the car and this hellish journey. I was beginning to feel like I’d been born in that bloody car. Was beginning to believe I’d probably die in it as well.

At last, we saw the turnoff for the village. Carefully following the instructions we’d been emailed we bumped our way up a cart track and parked where we’d been told to. I switched off the car. Silence, well, apart from the non-stop rain that was.

I looked at the clock. It was 6:30pm. We’d been on the road for over eight hours. We could have flown to New York in less time. But at least we were here, even though I still had to unpack the car. Unable to park any closer to the cottage, we had to lug everything up a narrow pathway. It was dark. Proper dark. Countryside dark. So, we had to fumble around trying to find the key, get the door open and find the light switch. Miss F had carried one bag to the house, but was so excited to explore our new home for the week, that she dumped it just inside the front door and skipped off, leaving me to unload everything else and carry it all up that dark path in the pouring rain.

I was soaked to the skin. I had wet and muddy feet. I was cold and tired and quite frankly pissed off. Royally pissed off. I was stiff from the stress of driving for eight hours, and did I mention how pissed off I was. Bloody hell, I muttered to myself, this is precisely why I don’t do holidays! This is why I stay home, because this always happens to us.

Grumping and muttering the whole time, it took me four trips to unload the car and get everything into the cottage.

“Come and have a look, mummy,” my over-excited daughter sang out. “It’s absolutely wonderful.”

Struggling to untie the sodden laces on my trainers, I pulled them off and propped them up by the radiator to dry – yes, the lovely cottage owners had been concerned about how cold and wet it was so had popped over earlier and put the heating on. Feeling my jeans stick to my legs like wet blotting paper, I yelled at Miss F to come and help take things upstairs, rather than prancing about all over the place like a useless fairy. Chastised, she came down to help and I felt mean, but also strangely better for venting a little.

We carried our suitcases and wash bags upstairs. The cottage was very open plan and so new and shiny it almost hurt to look at it. Miss F’s room was big and comfy, with one of those beds that can be two singles or a superking. At her request, it had been left as a superking and Teddy was already sitting on it, looking somewhat lost in that vast expanse of bed. There was a gorgeous bathroom, with creamy marble tiles and a huge walk in shower that I eyed longingly. My spirits began to rise.

Then there was my room, and of course, there was my old bed. In the stresses of the journey I’d forgotten I’d be sleeping in it again. It was like greeting an old friend, and my spirits lifted even further. Telling Miss F to quickly change out of her wet things, I peeled off my sopping jeans and felt much better once I was in dry, warm clothes.

Downstairs there was a large open plan lounge, kitchen, diner, with a huge TV on the wall and a woodburning stove in the corner. A small cloakroom was under the stairs, and as we carried our boxes of food and drink into the kitchen and started to unpack, we discovered a homemade lemon drizzle cake with three birthday candles on it and a pack of matches lying next to it. I’d happen to mention to the owner that it was Miss F’s birthday the day we were travelling up, so she’d made her a cake. That cheered us both up, that she’d been so kind and thoughtful.

Finally, in the fridge, I found a little bottle of Prosecco and my spirits were completely restored to their usual levels. We finished unpacking, settling into our home for the next six days. That’s why I like self-catering holiday lets, you can take your own things and make it feel like home.

Neither of us were particularly hungry, so I made us a hot snack which we had with cake, and I had the Prosecco – hey, I was on holiday and I think I definitely deserved it after that hellish road trip. We switched on the TV; Miss F wildly excited to discover we had Sky movies. Bizarrely there was no sound and the subtitles were on, which took a bit of fiddling around with the remote to amend, and I assumed the previous holiday makers had been hard of hearing or something.

An early night seemed a good idea for us both, so Miss F soon went upstairs to her superking bed and I channel hopped, trying to find something to fill an hour or so. Ten minutes later she was back down, complaining that the TV was so loud it was booming in her room, keeping her awake.

The TV was on so low I could barely hear it, so I went upstairs to hear for myself and discovered that she was right. Oh, the joys of open plan acoustics. By some weird trick of sound, even thought the TV volume was on a low setting, it was echoing into her bedroom. What to do? Of course, volume off and subtitles on, so that mystery was explained. And that was how I had to watch TV after she’d gone to bed for the whole week, with the volume off and the subtitles on.

Going to bed myself, I cleaned my teeth in an unfamiliar bathroom where the water tasted “different” from home, and then settled down into my old bed – at least that was familiar. Lying there, listening to the rain hammering down on the skylight above, I wondered how the week would go, and I really hoped it would stop bloody raining!

Tune in next week for part two of the best holiday we ever had – it gets better, honestly.

Julia Blake

The Doctor will see you now

It’s been a busy week, not helped by the fact that I haven’t been very well, so this week’s blog will probably be shorter than normal. I awoke Monday morning with a pain in my back lower molar and a swollen jaw. Oh heck, I thought, here we go again. About seven or eight years ago I had exactly the same thing and it turned out to be a pretty severe infection which required two doses of live antibiotics to clear it up. I was back to work Monday and Tuesday, so there wasn’t really much I could do about it, other than pop pain meds and hope for the best.

My boss asked if I’d phoned my dentist to make an appointment, but I was reluctant to do so, knowing exactly how that conversation would go.

“Hi, I think I have an infection and I’m in a lot of pain.”

“Right, the dentist can see you later today.”

“Well, actually I’m at work so can we make it Wednesday?”

“Hmm, if you can wait it’s obviously not that bad, so let’s say that the dentist can see you a week next Tuesday.”

Like most people, I don’t get paid for having time off work sick so couldn’t afford to have an appointment during working hours. Instead, I walked to the dentist first thing Wednesday morning and threw myself onto the mercy of the receptionist, hoping that the fact the whole of the left side of my face was now swollen like a bullfrog would arouse her sympathies. After all, it’s harder to say no to someone who’s standing in front of you and is clearly in pain, than it is a faceless voice on the other end of the phone.

I was in luck, I only had to wait ten minutes before the dentist squeezed me in between patients. I was in his chair for precisely thirty seconds. I opened my mouth as far as I could, he looked, pulled a face, confirmed it was the same situation as previously, and gave me a prescription for two different sorts of antibiotics with the same warnings as before.

Now, doctors always tell you not to drink at all when on antibiotics, but the truth is the odd glass won’t hurt you because 95% of antibiotics prescribed are inert, dead. However, that wasn’t the case with these ones, and both the dentist, and the pharmacist who filled the prescription, stressed the important of abstinence. Last time I was a good girl and not a drop passed my lips the whole time I was taking them, except… I went for dinner at my parents’ house and mum had made a sherry trifle for dessert and I just didn’t think. I mean, it wasn’t in a glass, so it didn’t count as alcohol, right? Wrong. It so counted, and one tiny bowlful made me as sick as a dog. An experience I wasn’t keen to repeat, so until I’ve finished the course, I’m a teetotaller.

I also have to take a couple of probiotic drinks a day. The live antibiotics are so strong that they will strip all the bacteria from my body and won’t make any distinction between the good guys and the bad, thus leaving my immune system wide open for infection.

I left the dentist clutching my prescription and popped around the corner to my doctor’s surgery – I had to call in to pick up my hayfever pills anyway so hoped the dispensary there could also fill my prescription. They could, but not until next week and I really needed to start them immediately.

I walked back into town. Now, Wednesday is market day in the small town where I live and the place was heaving with people wandering around, stopping right in front of me, and generally being annoying.

I was tired and hungry. My whole face had throbbed with pain the entire night before, so I hadn’t really had any sleep, and my jaw was so sore that eating solid food was also an issue. I really wasn’t in the mood to deal with people, especially people who continuously got in my way and were just generally there!

Boots the Chemist was on my direct route home and I knew it was my best bet for getting my prescription filled immediately. Whilst I was there, I’d also be able to get the probiotic drinks I needed and the teatree oil shampoo and conditioner that Miss F had requested I pick up next time I was in town.

Brilliant, I thought. One shop and I could get it all, and then I could go home to take my first dose, pop another paracetamol and hibernate from the world. I reached the shop and dropped off my prescription at the pharmacy. Five minutes, I was promised, so grabbed a basket and went looking for the other items on my list. Endless aisles of haircare products, any teatree oil shampoo and conditioner? No, of course there wasn’t. I tracked down an assistant, who confirmed they didn’t sell it, but Holland & Barrett (all the way over on the other side of town) might. Probiotic drinks, I looked in the chiller cabinet, everything but. If I’d been in the mood for a Dr Pepper or a Diet Coke, then I could have drowned myself in it. Sandwiches, mini pots of pasta salad and falafel wraps galore, but actual healthy probiotic drinks… nope! My bad, the word “Chemist” tagged on the end of “Boots the” had plainly confused me.

By now, I was hot and dizzy and could feel my irritability rising. I’m a bit like a bear when I’m either unwell, tired, hungry, frustrated and need to pee – add all of those factors together and it makes for a very unpleasant Julia who had to go home before she bit someone.

I went home. Had some porridge with honey and then took my first dose. After a rest, I felt revived enough to walk to Waitrose which did sell probiotic drinks, hooray.

And then the fun began. If you’ve never taken live antibiotics you have no idea what they do to you. Completely stripping your body of all bacteria, it results in gastro combustion which can erupt at any moment and is highly unpleasant. Is it possible to pass internal organs? Asking for a friend.

But, needs must, and if it will get rid of the infection and stop the pain, then I’ll put up with the violent stomach cramps and the frequent bathroom visits.

Having a holiday off work last week was wonderful. Exhausted from the Christmas season and the January sales, it was nice to have a break, and I was determined to make the most of my eight wonderful days off. Usually, I waste my holiday frantically trying to catch up on housework, but I’ve come to the conclusion it is a complete and utter waste of time because I will never catch up. There will always be something that needs doing, so I might as well accept this and instead do something else with my time off, such as write.

I haven’t written an original word since last April, when I finished writing Chaining Daisy. Okay, I’ve blogged every week, but I’m not sure that counts, so I was determined that during my week off I would write, and only write.

Monday, I couldn’t get started. Begging the main character to give me a clue about her life, she remained stubbornly silent, so I pressed on and did the few chores I needed to get done in the week all in one day.

Tuesday morning, as I was eating breakfast, that obstinate Miss whispered in my head – “My life is small”. That was it, just one line, but it was enough. With rising excitement, I sat down at my laptop and typed the opening line – Her life was small. And from then on it was easy. Why was her life small? That was ten days ago, and I’m happy to report that to date I’ve managed to write 40,000 words. This is book three in the Blackwood Family Saga and as they all run to about 50,000 words each, this is a massive chunk of the novel written.

I’m very excited about this one. It’s completely different from the plot I had in my head, but I’m happy with the direction it’s taken, although, if anyone looks at my browser history I’m going to be in trouble. With searches covering the topics of burner phones, habits of serial killers, police safehouses, what is the range of an assault rifle and how much damage would a bullet do to a body if fired from such and such a distance, it’s enough to raise eyebrows in my direction. I’m a writer, honest, it’s all research.

I hate being ill. I’m the world’s worst patient. Hopeless at all this self-love nonsense, I push myself too far, refuse to rest, forget to take my medication at the right time, and generally drive myself crazy with my refusal to simply give in and admit that I’m not well.

I think it’s because for most of my life I have had to struggle on however sick I’ve been. Single parents have no one to tag in and take over to give them a rest. I could be bleeding from the eyeballs and Miss F would still need feeding and picking up from work.

Different story when she’s ill, of course, then it’s a constant chorus of – “Mum, can I have a drink,” “Mum, my bed’s all messed up,” “Mum, I can’t find Teddy,” “Mum, I feel… bleuughh… Mum, I’ve been sick again.”

Funny story, when she was a little one, about five or six, I noticed that she was very rosy cheeked one day, I mean, glowing, like a painted Dutch Doll. She also had a slight rash on her torso and was off her food. I took her to the doctor. Our normal doctor – who knew me and was used to my slightly off kilter sense of humour – was on holiday, so we had to see someone else. An elderly, very correct, doctor, he examined her.

“She has slapped cheek syndrome,” he told me.

“That’s impossible,” I replied.

“Oh, and why is that?” His eyebrows rose at my impudence in doubting his diagnosis.

“Because I never slap her where it shows.”

My usual doctor would have just laughed, understanding it was a joke, but this one looked at me in utter horror and scribbled something in his notes. Probably putting me on a list of some kind.

Over the years, Miss F has had the usual childhood ailments. She caught chicken pox off her cousin, and whilst she barely had any spots at all, poor Miss F was completely covered with them. They were everywhere. In her ears, up her nose and on her eyelids. Strapped into cotton mittens so she wouldn’t scratch and scar herself, for a week she was daily subjected to oatmeal baths, Calomine lotion and drops in her eyes – which were distressing for both her and me. Afterwards, I daily rubbed bio oil into her scars and they mostly cleared up, except one nasty one which has left a permanent spot in her left eyebrow where no hair will ever grow. Barely noticeable, I think she quite likes it, leastways even now that she is a teenager with access to eyebrow pencils, she never fills it in.

When she was ten, she came down with a virulent and rather nasty viral infection which settled in her joints and left her bedbound for a week. The doctor told me she had to have utter bedrest, and that too much exertion could leave her permanently afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis. Of course, I phoned the school as soon as I had this diagnosis and spoke to them at length about it. Absolutely, Ms Blake, they reassured me. We completely understand, keep her at home as long as necessary. Please just keep us updated as to her progress.

Duly, I telephoned them every day, letting them know how she was and that sadly she still wasn’t well enough to come back, but please could they email me some of her coursework for us to go over so she didn’t fall too far behind. I mean, obviously her education was and still is very important to me, but the doctor had terrified me with his grim warning, and, quite frankly, her long-term health seemed far more important than missing a few days of school at age ten.

Five days into her illness I received a letter from the school. Miss F had missed a lot of school, they said. They were concerned she might be truanting. Was I aware of quite how much time she’d had off and how that would impact on her future exam success? It was with regret, they said, that they were planning on starting legal proceedings against me!

Absolutely furious, I was going to telephone them, but this kind of anger had to be vented face to face. I did telephone my doctor though, who was horrified at the school’s attitude and again warned that under no circumstances was she to be moved yet. In fact, so adamant was he how detrimental to her health this would be, he sent me a very strongly worded email to print out and take to the school with me.

My mother drove in to sit with Miss F whilst I went to confront the school. Now, I’m normally a mild-mannered, let the waves wash over my head, kind of parent when it comes to schools. Trying not to be that parent – the one always making a fuss – I never had time to anyway, I firmly believed in keeping my head below the ramparts and not getting noticed. But this was different. I’d been in daily contact with them, keeping them informed at every step about her condition and the doctor’s diagnosis. To have received a letter like this, well, it was beyond belief!

I drove round there, girded my loins, and invaded the headmaster’s office. No appointment, no warning, I marched through his receptionist as if she wasn’t there and slapped the letter down on his desk. I’ve always felt that if you have a serious issue with an organisation, don’t waste time talking to the monkey, go straight to the organ grinder.

I talked. He listened. Once he realised what the issue was, he was horrified. Dragged the receptionist in demanding an answer. Why had this poor parent been dragged away from her child’s sickbed and threatened with legal action for merely obeying the doctor’s very strict instructions – here he waved the email under the woman’s face.

I did actually feel sorry for her by this point as, red faced, she scuttled away to see what had happened, confirming that she knew precisely what the situation with Miss F was because it was her I’d been reporting to each day. Turns out, there was an automated gremlin lurking at the heart of their computer system. Crouching there, it kept a record of all pupil attendance and, when a certain number of days had been missed, spat out this offensive letter, which was automatically posted with no one bothering to check or confirm its accuracy.

The issue was resolved, and no real harm done, but it did get me to thinking. What about if Miss F’s condition had been even more serious than it was? What if she was lying in hospital with a potentially terminal illness? How distressing would it have been to have received a letter like that?

Talking about receiving distressing letters, I received an odd one this week that I don’t know whether to laugh at or be offended by. After ten long years of Miss F’s father not contributing a penny to her upkeep and the Child Maintenance Agency proving worse than useless at getting anything out of him – apparently, the poor love is not earning anything and is filing nil tax returns. Really? So, the company he owns and the racehorse he’s just bought and splashed all over his Facebook page are just Scotch mist, are they? – Anyway, I gave up expecting any support from him years ago, be it financial, emotional or any other kind, but each year the Child Maintenance Agency send me a long letter, at the end of which they inform me that the child maintenance I can expect to receive that year amounts to £0.00 and what bank account would I like that paying into?

So, you can imagine my surprise when this year there was a change. He is going to finally contribute something to his daughter’s upkeep – wait for it, a whole £6.51 per week! Like I said, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, although on reflection, I think I’ll just shrug my shoulders and accept that it is what it is.

Anyway, I said this blog wouldn’t be a long one and here it is at almost 3000 words. It’s gone 8pm on Friday evening, and I will soon have to turn out on this cold and windy night to do the twenty-minute drive to pick Miss F up from work.

I’m glad I’ve managed to write this tonight. I have one more day off tomorrow before going back to work on Sunday and I’m desperate to get back to my story. My hero and heroine were left in a very precarious position and I really want to know how things worked out for them. Anyone know how quickly chloroform works? Asking for a friend, honest.

Take care, and I’ll catch up with you all next week.

Julia Blake

This is the road to Hell…

I’ve been on holiday all this week and I must say it’s been wonderful. Not having to get up early, although of course I haven’t exactly had lay ins, I’m afraid my ability to sleep in was destroyed by having a baby and I’ve never got back into the habit. Nevertheless, it was nice not having to be up and out of the house but being able to take things a little easy.

I was determined during this holiday to forget about catching up with housework or all the other things I tend to waste my time on during my precious days off, instead I was going to concentrate on writing book ten. Apart from blogging, I haven’t written anything original since last April and like most things, the longer you let things slide, the harder it is to get back into it.

Monday, I struggled to start. My main character was refusing to play ball and wouldn’t give me any clues about herself, so I did all the bits and pieces I really had to get done during the week, including a massive pile of ironing that had been glaring at me for days. Finally, early Tuesday morning, she whispered one line to me – My life is small. And that was it, that was all I needed, because with an opening line of – Her life was small – I was able to ask the question why? Why was her life small, and from that point I was off and running. I won’t bore you with too many details, but at the time of writing this blog on Saturday, I had written almost 30,000 words of the book. Not bad going, and considering the Blackwood family saga of which this will be book three, are all books of about 50,000 it means I’m a good chunk of the way through. I must say, this book is turning out to be very exciting and I don’t think I’ve ever written such an action led book before.

So that’s been my holiday, and it may sound boring to you, but to me it was bliss. Not only time to write, but time to read and time to cook a nice meal every evening for me and Miss F. It was Valentine’s Day on Friday, and even though I don’t hold with such nonsense and Miss F was working anyway, I still made us a lovely three course meal on Thursday evening to celebrate.

It was funny though, in the week leading up to my time off, every time I happened to mention to someone that I had a weeks holiday coming up, their immediate reaction was – “oh, how nice, where are you going?” – and it’s interesting how most people don’t consider it a holiday unless you’ve actually packed your bags, left your home and traipsed off somewhere where you probably won’t be as comfortable or as relaxed as you are at home.

I love being home and I love being home with nothing major to do. It’s so relaxing to be able to just chill out and read a book, or catch up on a TV series, or have friends round for coffee or lunch, and in the summer why would I want to get into a sweaty car and sit in a traffic jam for hours to sit somewhere that isn’t as nice as my own garden?

We haven’t really had that many holidays over the years, Miss F and I. For a start, funds have rarely been available, and as holidays are so expensive there has always been the tussle between wasting money on an experience that will be over and done with in a week, or spend it on essential improvements to our home which we’ll appreciate for years to come. Also, there was just Miss F and me, and when she was younger and going to bed early in the evening, that meant I’d be left sitting on my own in a hotel room or holiday cottage, having to be quiet because I didn’t want to wake her up. Not much of a holiday for me. It’s also exhausting, being the sole adult and the one responsible for all the packing, the driving and the decision making, the few holidays we did take, I came back needing a holiday to get over it.

I remember one particularly bad time we had when we were going to stay with friends down near Portsmouth for three days, before then travelling on to stay with other friends for a couple of days who lived in Gosport.

Things didn’t get off to a good start when we were sitting in a fully packed car and I turned the key, only for the engine to go clunk. Panicking, I turned it again. Nothing. I could not believe it. This was our holiday. We hadn’t ever really had one before, and the fecking bloody car wouldn’t start. I tried again, muttering curses under my breath, aware of little ears strapped into a car seat behind me. On the tenth go, the ignition caught, and the car flew into life. Phew. We drove onto the A14, only ten minutes behind schedule, so that was fine.

We’d barely gone five miles, when I had to slam on my brakes and ending up bumping into the central reservation to avoid an accident literally two cars ahead of me. Shaken, I checked that Miss F was okay and then got out to see what had happened. A car had slid into the side of a lorry. Luckily, no one seemed hurt, but the road was blocked. Two other lorries had stopped, and their drivers got out and between them shoved the slightly damaged car over to the side. Producing brooms from the back of their lorries, they swept all the broken glass off the road and then waved us through. Phew, I thought again. That was lucky.

We drove on another five miles, then from the back of the car came those words that no parent wants to hear at the beginning of a long drive to go on holiday. “Mummy, I don’t feel very… bleeuugggh!!” Vomit erupted from my child all over herself and the back seat of the car. Now, she’d had blackberry porridge for breakfast, so you can imagine what that was like.

Now edging into full blown panic, I desperately wondered what on earth I could do? Turn around, go back, abandon the holiday? Plainly, the gods were telling me something and the universe quite clearly didn’t want me to have this holiday. I saw the turn off to Exning approach and remembered that’s where my aunt and uncle lived, so took the turning.

Driving through the village, my phone clamped recklessly to my ear, I shrieked out the situation to my mother and begged her for directions because I couldn’t for the life of me remember where they lived.

“White gates, look for some white gates.”

“There are no white gates!”

“Turn right by the butchers.”

“I have no butchers, I have a bakers and possibly a fecking candlestick makers, but no bloody butchers.”

By this point I had passed through the town of full-blown panic and was approaching the suburbs of mild hysteria.

Eventually, I found them and bless them, they rose magnificently to the challenge of their niece and her small, seven-year-old daughter arriving unannounced on their doorstep one Monday morning, with a car covered in purple vomit.

My uncle manfully volunteered to deal with the car and my aunt hustled us up to the bathroom, where I stripped Miss F and hosed her down in their shower and helped her clean her teeth, whilst my aunt quickly washed her clothes and poor Teddy. Being held in her lap I’m afraid he’d borne the brunt of it and wasn’t looking very happy about the situation.

All this took time, of course, and I phoned my friend who’d been expecting us for lunch, warning her it would be more likely mid-afternoon by the time we reached them. Then we got back in the thankfully now freshened up car and set out once more on what was rapidly becoming a quest of almost Tolkien proportions.

Now, I’d been given strict instructions what route to take and they were taped to my dashboard for easy reference. I knew I had to stay on the M25 until I reached the M something or other to Portsmouth and after that it would be plain sailing. I sat on the M25 for what felt like hours, and suddenly saw a sign proclaiming that Watford was ahead. What?! I thought, isn’t Watford on the North side of London? Had I missed the turning? Had I almost done a complete lap of the capital?

Panicking. When the next junction announced it was the A something or other going to Portsmouth, I automatically took it, assuming I’d stupidly written down the instructions wrong, and, to be honest, so thankful to see a sign pointing in the right direction I didn’t stop to think. Just as I turned off the M25 and was fully committed to taking this road, I saw the next sign along – it was the M something or other to Portsmouth.

Too late, this was the road I was on, so this was the way I was going. I drove for another thirty minutes, desperately wondering how badly I’d screwed up and how much time I’d added to this road trip from hell. I saw a sign for a Wimpy roadside café – I hadn’t realised they still existed – and took it. I was starving hungry and desperate for a wee and a cup of coffee.

We parked and got out, both incredibly relieved to be out of the car. The facilities were before you entered the main restaurant, so we used those first, then went in to get something to eat and drink and it was as though we’d stepped through a time-warp and ended up in the 1970’s. Seriously. Orange and brown flock wallpaper, brown lino on the floor. Brown Formica tables with orange padded bench seats and those big ceramic lamps hanging overhead. There was waitress service – I kid you not – and the menu had all the things I remember there being when stopping at a Wimpy was an occasional, longed for, holiday treat.

I just ordered burger and fries for myself, with coffee, water and some toast for Miss F. She said she wasn’t hungry and was still looking a bit green about the gills, so I didn’t want to risk putting anything more exciting into her. My aunt had given us an old ice cream container, which Miss F had clutched like the Holy Grail all the way, but I really didn’t want any more incidents in the car.

While we waited on our food, I phoned my friend to fill her in with what had happened. She seemed a little annoyed at my ineptness but gave me fresh instructions and assured me I’d only added about twenty or so minutes to my trip which was now reaching epic proportions. We’d left home at 9:30am, thinking to reach theirs by midday at the latest. It was now 1:30pm and we still had at least half the journey still to go.

After lunch, we reluctantly climbed back into the car and set off. For two pins I would have turned around and gone home, but not only were people expecting us, I was quite looking forward to catching up with friends. Maybe I wasn’t so desperate to see the first friend we were staying with again, but I was definitely looking forward to staying with the second couple.

The rest of the journey seemed to pass uneventfully, but I went wrong somehow navigating her complicated instructions around various villages and suburbs. Peering at road signs, trying to make sense of it all, there was a sound from the back seat. Yep. The toast had made a reappearance and we now had a full ice cream container of vomit in the car with us.

I pulled over, there was a woman working in her garden with a little girl helping her and I shamelessly threw myself completely on her mercy.

“Please help me, my little girl’s just been sick in the back of the car.”

“Oh, you poor darlings.”

I kid you not, that was what she said, and then she just kind of took us under her wing and sorted everything out. She got Miss F out of the car and disposed of the vomit down a handy nearby drain. I fished Miss F’s toothbrush out of the case, again, and her daughter who was about ten, took Miss F inside to help her clean her teeth and wash her face and hands.

Our lovely saviour helped me clean up the little bit that had splattered on the seatbelt, and she then looked at my instructions and drew me a handy little map with a clear and precise route marked on it. Seriously, she was like an angel who’d been sent to earth to help other mum’s when their offspring had barfed in the car. I never got her name, and of course I never saw her again, but I’ll never forget how amazingly kind she was. People like her totally restore my faith that there is still good in the world.

Finally, we reached my friend’s house at almost 5:00pm. We’d been travelling for over seven hours. I think I could have flown to Kief in the time it took us to get there. But we were there. Surely now I could relax and enjoy our holiday? Wrong. In the couple of years, it had been since I’d last seen this person, her snobby pretentiousness had got worse. Before, it had been funny. Now, it was so pronounced that it made me very uncomfortable and I was livid at the way she treated my child.

Now, I’ve had parents with small children come to stay before and always I check with the parents what kind of stuff they like to eat and make sure I get that in, together with some fairly safe standbys such as fishfingers, oven chips and spaghetti bolognaise. Bearing in mind, Miss F was only seven-years-old and also bearing in mind I’m not the richest person in the world, so our normal diet isn’t too extravagant most of the time, also bearing in mind she knew how sick Miss F had been on our trip there, I was a bit taken aback to find out our meal that night was going to be squid in a really rich red wine sauce. For a seven-year-old.

Now, I would hesitate to offer squid to a grown up unless I knew they really liked it, let alone expect a child to eat it. I knew Miss F would (a) refuse to put the slimy heap of tentacles in her mouth (b) wouldn’t like it even if I could persuade her to eat some, and (c) probably throw it up everywhere. I managed to persuade my friend that as Miss F was still feeling sick, could she possibly just have some toast and an early night, and then I was sure she’d be a lot better in the morning.

Things went downhill from then on. Now, I’m not a slob, but when someone immediately plumps the cushion you’ve been sitting on as you stand up, and hoovers up under you every five minutes and snaps “Shoes” at you the second you walk in the front door, then I begin to get a bit twitchy. And when every single meal comprises of ludicrously expensive, rich and over the top fish dishes that your child has had no experience with and simple won’t eat, then things start to get a bit tense between the grown-ups.

There were whispered conversations about me in the kitchen, which of course I could hear. There was forced politeness, and sympathy for me for being saddled with such a “fussy” child. I wanted to slap her for that one. Miss F was no worse and a hell of a lot better than most of my other friends’ kids, but we didn’t inhabit the type of world where having squid and crab and lobster was a normal, everyday occurrence. I just wanted to grab my child and go. Her brat of a child who was the same age as Miss F also didn’t help. Totally spoilt and presumably spoon fed squid with his mother’s milk, he was simply foul to my daughter and actually hit her so hard around the head with his lightsabre that it raised a bump the size of an egg and I wondered whether I should take her to A&E.

At last, it was Wednesday morning and we could go. I packed up the car as quickly as I could and then there were polite hugs and promises to stay in touch. Her son really put the cherry on the top though, as we were heading out the door, I heard him say.

“I’m so glad they’re leaving, mummy.”

Yeah, you and me both, kid.

We got in the car and drove to the top of the road to turn around, and as we drove back past the door where they were standing ready to wave, I muttered through clenched teeth to Miss F.

“Right, big smiles, wave goodbye.”

We waved goodbye until we turned the corner and could no longer see them, when the smiles and the waves abruptly stopped.

“Don’t worry, darling,” I promised. “We are never going back there again.”

And we never did. I also never contacted my friend again and she never contacted me. Which, I guess is a shame, we had been friends for several years and had had some good times together, but she’d broken the universal code of friendship, which is never, ever criticize somebody else’s child to their face. Sure, Miss F could have her moments, and maybe she didn’t know what a mussel was and really didn’t want to try one, thank you very much, but then I know a lot of adults who won’t even try seafood either and she was only a little girl.

I knew why my friend had behaved like that. She was one of those people for whom appearances was absolutely everything. An immigrant from Ukraine, she’d worked very hard to get what she called the “nice things” in life and cared passionately about them. She could never understand why I didn’t give a hoot about my home being glossy magazine perfect. It was home, and so long as it was clean, tidy and warm, then I didn’t care about having co-ordinated cushions which exactly matched the rug and exactly matched the picture frames.

She was what my mother used to call “showing off”. Look at me, I have all these things and earn all this money. Aren’t I wonderful? In a word, no. I’ve never cared about what my friends have or how much money they make, only what they’re like. Furthermore, if any guest in my house had ever been made to feel that uncomfortable then I would have been ashamed of myself.

So, did our week get any better? I hear you ask. Oh yes it did. We made it to my old friends, where I fell on their necks with relief at being there. They had a log burning stove going, with a big comfy sofa in front of it, with Willo-the-Wisp DVDs for Miss F to watch and fishfingers, mash and beans for her tea. It was heaven. They were renovating an old house and things were a bit chaotic, but that didn’t matter a bit, because it was warm and homey, and they were pleased to see us and made us feel so welcome.

And that, at the end of the day, is how it should be.

My, how I’ve run on. I was going to tell you about the best holiday we ever had, but I’ll obviously have to save that for another day. I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday, and I am going to celebrate my last day off work with an enormous roast dinner and a glass or two of wine.

See you next week

Julia Blake

Are you sitting comfortably children? Let’s talk about TV.

I was talking to Miss F last night about the television programmes she remembered watching when she was a kid. That led onto ones I remembered watching even further back, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was a child. Before I knew it, she was pulling up clips on YouTube and we were laughing and reminiscing about favourites and remembering theme songs that we’d loved.

Some forty years ago there wasn’t the choice of children’s programmes that there are now, and we certainly didn’t have channels dedicated to them. We were relegated to that time between getting home from school at 3:20pm to the time our fathers got home, and tea was on the table at 6:00pm. I remember in the mornings there would be programmes for school on, and many a sick day was happily spent watching “Stop, Look, Listen” and “How We Used to Live”. There were maybe a few programmes for young, pre-school kids on at lunchtime, but us older kids had to be content with the two hours and forty minutes we got in the afternoon.

It always started with Play School – and which window were we going through today? BBC had only British made programmes, but ITV had imported American ones, and my brother and I would be jumping up and down like jack-in-the-boxes switching channels to get our favourite shows. This could cause friction – in the days before catch-up TV and even video recorders, if your show clashed with someone else’s then you’d missed it for good – but we muddled along somehow, compromising and making deals.

Saturday mornings was also strictly for kids. And back in the day we had a choice between Swap Shop on BBC and Tiswas on ITV. Now, my mother preferred that we watched Swap Shop, thinking it was a much nicer show because it was sedate and was hosted by that nice Noel Edmonds and lovely Keith Chegwin and sweet Maggie Philbin. As opposed to Tiswas, which was anarchy incarnate with characters like Spit the Dog and the Phantom Flan Flinger, and its steady diet of farts, custard pies, buckets of water and sheer silliness. Needless to say, us kids loved it and would watch it sneakily, always poised to jump up and turn over if we heard my mother coming in.

During the school holidays there would be telly just for kids in the morning, and bizarrely enough it always seemed to be black and white foreign imports with subtitles, which were repeated each and every holiday for what seemed the whole of my childhood. But I didn’t care. I would watch them over and over, and I still have very fond memories of Robinson Crusoe, the Singing Ringing Tree and White Horses – on white horses let me ride away…

White Horses, Robinson Crusoe and the fabulous
Singing, Ringing Tree

There were programmes that were supposed to educate children, but we even loved them and lapped up shows like Play School, Blue Peter, Jackanory, John Craven’s Newsround, Vision On, Magpie and the unlikely named Why Don’t You Switch Off Your Television Set and Go and Do Something More Interesting Instead?

Play School, Blue Peter, Magpie, Jackanory, Why Don’t You, John Cravens Newsround, Vision On

For me though, two bears ruled the airwaves – Paddington and Rupert the Bear. I loved them, I don’t know why, but there was simply something about talking bears that got me. I took Miss F to see the newest incarnation of Paddington at the cinema and loved it, happy they kept the essence of the stories but made him even more personable.

I can even just about remember really old black and white shows like The Flowerpot Men, Andy Pandy, Lambchop and the Romper Room, but the era I remember the most probably spanned 1972 to 1980, when I was five to thirteen years old. Apart from books, TV was our only form of indoor entertainment, and we were fortunate to have such quality shows as Bagpus, The Clangers, Crackerjack, Rainbow, Pipkins, Grange Hill and Dangermouse.

Bagpus, Grange Hill, Andy Pandy,
Crackerjack, Dangermouse

Then there was Captain Pugwash. A rumour has gone around that the pirates aboard this ship all had rather suggestive names – Seaman Stains, Master Bates, One Eyed Jack and First Officer Dick, with Roger the cabin boy, all aboard the Black Pig. Now, I’m pretty sure I remember the cabin boy being called Tom and have no memory of the other names. I’ve been told it’s an urban myth, that the names of the other pirates were all perfectly respectable pirate names with nothing rude or suggestive about them. I suppose I could check, a moment on Google will give me the truth, but I don’t want to know. It’s a wonderful story and one I rather want to be true, so please don’t comment about it and spoil the fun.

But it wasn’t all British, we had American shows as well. A lot were pretty awful, but there were some that I really enjoyed. Shows such as the Banana Splits (that theme song has been stuck in my head since the early 1970s – Google it and you’ll see what I mean), Deputy Dawg, Top Cat, Thunderbirds, He Man, Scooby Doo, Bugs Bunny and Little House on the Prairie, which I absolutely adored.

Thunderbirds, He-Man, Bugs Bunny, Little House on the Prairie, Deputy Dawg, Banana Splits, Top Cat

As I said, at about 6:00pm children’s TV ended, and screen time was handed over to the adults again, but there was always a little five minute short programme to end the day with before the boring news came on. In those last five minutes we had programmes like Fred Bassett, Crystal Tips and Alastair, Ludwig, Noah and Nelly, Ivor the Engine, Willo-the-Wisp, and of course, the wonderful Magic Roundabout. Everyone loved the Magic Roundabout, well, what wasn’t there to love? A permanently stoned rabbit, a mad cow that seemed to be on happy pills, an OCD dog and some weird spring like creature called Zebedee. Once, the BBC in its wisdom, shifted the showing time of the Magic Roundabout to earlier and were stunned at the countrywide outcry it caused. Most adults made it home in time to catch it and were not amused that due to its earlier time slot they were missing their daily hit of psychedelic madness. Giving in to rather heated demands, the BBC swiftly moved it back to its 5:55pm time.

Willo-the-Wisp, Fred Bassett, Ludwig, Ivor the Engine,
Noah and Nelly, The Magic Roundabout,
Crystal Tips and Alastair

Then I grew up. Life got busy and I had no time for children’s programmes anymore, not until I had a baby of my own and Miss F became old enough to begin watching them. To my surprise, some of the shows were the same although updated, but there was also a whole batch of new shows to enjoy or suffer. There were dedicated channels just for children, some on 24/7 although quite why they’d be on long after children should be in bed, I never did understand, and a lot, more American shows.

There were the Teletubbies that she loved, but vaguely worried me as I feared it might have a negative impact on her vocabulary, but it didn’t seem to. When she was a little older, she really loved a show called Wynx about a fairy school. I didn’t let her watch excessive amounts of TV and it always went off an hour before bedtime so we could snuggle down and read some stories, but she was allowed to watch pretty much whatever she wanted on children’s channels such as CBeebies and Milkshake, as I knew there’s be nothing inappropriate on them.

One day I was busy cleaning and Miss F was watching something on the BBC children’s channel, CBeebies. Passing through the lounge I glanced at the screen and noticed that one of the female presenters was quite clearly pregnant.

“Oh, how lovely, she’s going to have a baby.”

Miss F stared at me.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, see how big her tummy is? That’s because there’s a baby in there.”

Miss F stared at the screen curiously, then seemed to shrug and dismiss the matter. I carried on and gave it no more thought, until 3:00am that morning when I was ripped from sleep by Miss F having the screaming ab dabs. She’d had a nightmare about a witch that ate babies and thought it was coming to eat her. Of course, my throw away comment which I’d instantly forgotten about had sunk down into her mind where it had brewed and bubbled. A baby in her tummy? Well, as far as Miss F was concerned, there was only one way anything got into someone’s tummy and that was through their mouth!

I soothed and comforted, and explained that no, she hadn’t eaten a baby, but instead was keeping her baby safe and warm and fed in a special place inside her so that it could grow and be strong. And that, when it was big enough, it would come out and be her darling little son or daughter that she’d love very, very much, just as I loved Miss F. She thought about this, then gave me a look and said.

“So, how does the baby get in there then?”

I was stumped and so not ready for THAT conversation. Thinking rapidly, I replied.

“God put it there.”

And to be honest, at age three and at 3:00am, that was as good as she was going to get.

One of her favourite programmes was Lazy Town, and for those of you who don’t know what that was, Lazy Town was exactly that – a town full of lazy, slothful people who have their lives transformed by the arrival of Sportacus, a six foot, Icelandic, Olympic gymnast who dressed top to toe in blue Lycra and would spend each episode flexing his quite considerable muscles, and bouncing energetically around the screen, much to the secret joy of every bored mummy who happened to be watching.

One day, I had a funny conversation with Miss F where she meant one thing, and I, bad mummy that I was, meant something completely different.

“Mummy?”

“Yes?”

“Sportacus is really fit, isn’t he?”

“Oh yep, he certainly is.”

“Is he fitter than Fireman Sam?”

I considered the question.

“Well, Sportacus is all athletic and stuff, but Sam has the whole fireman and uniform thing going for him. I mean, he’s used to slinging women over his shoulder and carrying them away.”

“Well, what about Bob the Builder?”

“What about him?”

“In a fitness contest, who do you think would win? Sportacus, Fireman Sam or Bob the Builder?”

“That’s a tough one, like I said, Sportacus works out every day and he’s really got the body to show for it, and Sam, well, he’s a fireman, need I say more, but Bob, he’d put up shelves for you and fix things around the house, and that’s always… handy.”

Naughty mummy.

Battle of the hotties – Sportacus, Bob the Builder
and Fireman Sam

There were the Fimbles, Rosie and Jim, Mister Tumble, Come Outside and Peppa Pig – an especial favourite was Peppa Pig, and I remember whilst shopping in our local supermarket, Miss F had a complete meltdown upon the discovery of a pack of Peppa Pig sausages in the chiller cabinet!! Who thought that was a good idea?!

Most of the programmes that I saw with Miss F I quite enjoyed, I especially liked one voiced by Stephen Fry that I cannot for the life of me remember the name of. Stephen Fry was delightfully sarcastic in a way that children completely missed but bored adults really appreciated. And then there was In the Night Garden…

Oh, good lord! In the Night Garden! Has ever a more turgid, soul sucking, mind melting programme been created? Millions of parents were forced to watch it, slumped on the sofa, slack jawed, their eyes glazing over and their brains leaking out of their ears. For those of you lucky enough to have escaped this torture, it was set in a bizarre, psychedelic garden somewhere, full of odd characters that did nothing but run around repeating their names. And that was it. There was no plot, no story, nothing to explain what the heck was going on.

There was a weird blue thing called Iggle Piggle that danced about clutching a red blanky, an even weirder big bottomed, rock collecting creature called Packa Macka, the Tumblyvors who never had on any underwear, and a girl character called Upsa Daisy who wore a very short skirt that kept flipping up and spent most of her time in bed – I’m saying no more, you make your own judgement.

Then there were spaced out birds that made funny noises, and rather scary big balloons with googly eyes that moved creepily through the trees. There was the Ninky Nonk – a train thing with different sized carriages that tore through the garden like it had a ton of cocaine up its funnel, and the Pinky Ponk – an airship type thing that farted its way through the sky. I may have the names of those last two mixed up, but really, who cares?

Finally, there were these two little families that live in adjoining houses under a big tree. Both families comprised of a dad, a mum and then eight children that all looked about the same age. One family dressed in identical red robes and I think were called the Ponty Pines and the other family all dressed in identical blue robes and I can’t remember what they were called. They were odd. There’s no other word for it. Well, other than cultish, I guess. They didn’t go out much, the papa’s in both these families seemed to rule the roost, and they all slept together in the same room! None of the kids went to school, had healthy relationships outside the immediate family or were encouraged to express their individuality at all. Obviously, Social Services never visited the Night Garden, otherwise all those kids would have been taken into the care.

The absolute worse thing about this programme though? It was on every single fricking night and lasted for thirty minutes! Thirty minutes of people dressed in costumes running about going “Iggle Piggle” and “Packa Macka Wacka Do” and “Upsa Daisy!” It was enough to drive any parent to drink.

But now Miss F is sixteen and the programmes she wants to watch are more along the lines of Love Island, The Vampire Diaries and Pretty Little Liars, so clearly her standards have lowered. My time watching kid’s programmes is once again over, and I suppose I won’t start watching them again until when/if I ever become a grandmother. I wonder what programmes will be around then? How much will they have changed?

Anyway, that’s it for another week. I hope you’ve enjoyed my trip down memory lane and I wonder if it jogged any memories of programmes you used to watch and enjoy yourself, either as a child or maybe as a parent.

Take care of yourselves and have a great week.

Julia Blake

Slow and Steady Wins The Race

First of all, I’d like to apologise for this week’s blog coming to you a little later than normal. When you read about the kind of week I’ve had, you’ll understand why. For a start, my shifts this last month or so have been all over the place. When I first started at my current job, my shifts used to change every week and I never knew where I was, but my boss did try to ensure I had chunks of days off in a row. I only work three days a week, so he’d try to make it so they were sensibly proportioned with days off. Sometimes this wasn’t easy, as we were a team member down for the first six months after my start date, so I pulled a lot of overtime during that period.

Then the other part-time lady started, and things settled down a bit. Gradually, it seemed to shake down that I would work Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and the other lady would work Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Ok, it meant we both had to work a day at the weekend, but at least you always knew where you were and could plan things well in advance. Besides, with Miss F having Thursday off the same as me, it wasn’t so important having the weekend off. I only work 10am to 4pm on Sunday’s, so not too long, and Miss F tended to catch up on her sleep in the morning and get her college coursework done in the afternoon.

Then my boss went a bit crazy and suddenly I was doing day on, day off, day on, day off, which I absolutely HATED. Ask any woman if she wants a shift pattern like that and she’ll tell you no. Working like that, it meant I’d get up on my one day off with household chores to be done, shopping, ironing, running errands and catching up on social media, then it’d be back to work next day. Then the next day off it would be more of the same so I never got a chance to have any downtime or time to just relax or read, let alone do any writing.

I knew the other part-time lady was also getting fed up with it, she has a long-term medical situation going on, so knowing exactly what days she has off is essential for her when booking her various hospital and consultant’s appointments. So, we confronted our boss together and demanded he put our shifts back to how they were. He seemed genuinely shocked that we weren’t “thrilled” that our working days were – as he put it – “mixed up to make it interesting”. For a start – no. Middle aged, hard-working women do not want things “mixed up”. We like to know precisely where we are and having those four days off in a row are a godsend.

Having the Friday off, at least, is important to me. I have to get Miss F to her work placement by 9am and while that gives me plenty of time to get to work by before ten, it means I can’t go and pick her up at 2pm and have to ask my mother to do it. I don’t like having to do that, not only because I don’t want to put her out, after all it’s a nasty long drive there and back on twisty country lanes, but also because my mother is such a terribly, dangerous driver she scares the living daylights out of whoever is unfortunate enough to get in the car with her. Miss F has pleaded with me to get my shifts back to normal so I can pick her up, even offering to phone my boss and cry, if that’s what it took to make him agree.

But she didn’t have to resort to that, faced with our united determination my boss capitulated and I’m happy to report that from next week things will be back to normal. But, getting back to this week, and me explaining why the blog is a little late this morning. I had the Sunday off, but had a ton of laundry and housework to tackle in the morning, then in the afternoon took Miss F to get her tortoise. As you know, she was trying to decide what to do as the Indian Star Tortoise she wanted was proving impossible to source locally. Yes, she’d tracked down some dealer called Gary who lived in Guildford and had some for sale but, to be frank, the whole thing smelt a bit fishy.

All the experts agree that buying a hatchling that’s under two years old is cruel and unethical. They are too young to be removed from their mothers, so any dealer offering babies under two is clearly not that concerned about the creature’s welfare and happiness. Gary offered her a 2019 hatchling, so alarm bells were ringing all over the place. It was also such a long way to go, he wanted paying up front and that’s always worrying, plus there seemed no comeback if the tortoise turned out to be sickly or damaged in some way.

I employed my usual method when Miss F has to make a decision and a choice between what her heart wanted, and what her head knew to be right. We sat and discussed all the factors and then I left her to it. A couple of days later she came to me with a decision made. She’d done more research and decided to get a West Hermann Tortoise instead. Now, these are very small tortoises so won’t outgrow the tortoise table she’d already bought for at least twenty years. Best of all, Swallow Aquatics – a local reptile and fish showroom only a thirty-minute drive away – sold two-year-old hatchlings.

This seemed a much better prospect, safer and more ethical, and I was relieved it was a decision she’d reached with minimal prompting from me. We drove to Swallow Aquatics after first calling them to make sure they had them in stock, they did, lots of them. After some umming and ahhing, Miss F chose a little one that came to the very front of the tank to check us out.

You can just see him at the front bottom right

We filled in all the paperwork – buying a tortoise is a bit like adopting a baby, and I’d had no idea how much was involved. Miss F handed over £175 of her hard-earned cash and received a certificate of birth and registration, and a teeny tiny tortoise in a clear plastic box that had live crickets written on the side.

We got him home and into a warm bath to wash all the dust and other substances off him, then introduced him to his new, spacious home. Honestly, this tortoise is living the dream, his own swimming pool, food on demand and a cosy warm bed section filled with fresh timothy grass for him to snuggle down in at night.

West Hermann Tortoises come from the South of France and as this guy seems to have a proper little man syndrome, he’s been called Napoleon. Now, I didn’t think I’d get very excited about a tortoise, but I have to admit he’s actually very sweet and has a proper personality. He likes his head being stroked, he loves chin rubs and adores his bath, where he splashes about ankle deep in warm water, enjoying having his shell gently washed with cotton buds.

He’s funny too and I have a strong suspicion he has a quirky sense of humour. One morning, for some reason he decided to dump a ton of dirt into his swimming pool and turn it into a mud bath. Quite how he managed to do it given the size of him, I have no idea. He then sat there and looked at it, then looked at us, then back at the mess he’d made, as if to say – “I did this, fix it.” Miss F picked him up and he sat on her palm blinking his tiny eyes at us. “What did you do?” she asked him, and his reply was to open and close his mouth several times at us, almost as if he was laughing.

Monday, I had off, so spent the day catching up on shopping, chores and housework, and I also managed to get a couple of hours in sourcing illustrations for Erinsmore. It sounds like it should be a fun and easy job, but it’s quite hard work. I want the illustrations to obviously have the same vibe throughout and match a general aesthetic for the whole book, and I want each chapter illustration to reflect something that happens in the following chapter. It’s time consuming, but it is fun.

Tuesday, I had to do my last two hours of work ever for my freelance job. This marks the end of an era. I first started working for Mr G way back in 1987 when I was running a secretarial agency from my parents dining room. He had just gone it alone as an accountant and needed a freelance secretary. Right from the word go we clicked, having the same sense of humour, and I enjoyed doing his work. Over the years, his practice went from strength to strength and he always promised that if ever he needed someone full-time, I would get first refusal of the job.

The nineties came and home computers became more popular, gradually, the need for the services my business offered dwindled, until eventually I closed my doors in 1996 and had to look for a proper job. I worked for Allied Carpets for two years as a full-time sales consultant. Although I enjoyed the work and the pay was phenomenal, it was the type of job that could consume you if you let it. I worked long hours, sometimes all weekend, and of course I no longer had bank holidays off. At the same time, I was still doing Mr G’s work, having transferred some of my equipment to my newly converted office basement. People told me I was crazy, to still be struggling to do his work on top of such a demanding “proper” job. My response was always – “Jobs may come, and jobs may go, but Mr G’s work is always there.”

Eventually, the inevitable happened, I realised I’d reached burnout. I was working too hard. The job was taking over my soul. Yes, I was earning good wages, but most of that was going on much needed alcohol, along with meals out, takeaways and ready meals, because I was too beaten up to cook most evenings and the first thing I reached for when I got home was the vodka bottle. Something had to give, and then came my day off. Much longed for, I’d planned to spend it with my fiancé just having some us time. My boss had already telephoned three times by 10am. I turned off my phone. He called my fiancé. We turned off his phone. He called me on the landline. We put the phone on answerphone and switched off the ringer. Then he resorted to faxing me. Enough was enough! This was my day-off, I was outraged he felt he had the right to disrupt it so much. We had a blazing row over the phone, where I basically told him to f***k off, and that if he wanted me to come back to work the next day, he needed to leave me alone to enjoy what was left of my precious day off.

Ten minutes later, my phone rang again, about to scream my resignation down it I saw from caller ID that it was Mr G. He was wondering if I could call in for a minute, he had something very important to ask me. Intrigued, I popped around the corner to his office where he sat me down and offered me a job. A nice, calm, civilised job, away the shark eats shark atmosphere of the sales floor, where I would only work weekdays, never weekends and certainly never bank holidays. Ok, he couldn’t offer me such a high salary as I was getting from Allied Carpets, but still, what did I think?

What did I think? I burst into tears and accepted on the spot.

I worked full-time for Mr G from 1998 until Miss F was born in 2003. Going back after my maternity leave, I went back flexi, part-time, three days a week. I was very happy; he was a kind and thoughtful boss. A father of three children himself, he understood about things like having to suddenly dash off to pick up a child who’d fallen in the playground or was ill. Without his support, flexibility and sympathetic understanding, my life would have been a lot harder when my marriage exploded in 2004 and I was abruptly left a single mother trying to raise a child completely unaided.

In 2016 though, he decided to partially retire and although there would still be a few hours a week work from him, it certainly wouldn’t be enough to support me. I had to find another job. It was so hard. Being on the unemployment scrapheap at 48 was really hard. I suddenly realised how cushy I’d had it working for Mr G, how well he’d paid me, and how much I’d come to count on being able to change my working hours as I needed to. I began job hunting. It was awful. I hated it. Mr G had reassured me that he wouldn’t make me redundant until I’d found somewhere else, but still, I knew he was keen to take a step back and enjoy his retirement.

For the next year, I bounced about from job to job, never finding anything that quite fitted. During that time, I was also diagnosed with a long-term, serious medical condition which necessitated medication and surgery, so that didn’t help, and I did have to use some of my small redundancy pay-out to get by.

Finally, in September 2017 I started the job I have now, and life settled down a little. However, I still continued work freelance for Mr G as and when required on my days off. But now, even that has come to an end and I’ve done my last piece of work for him. It truly is the end of an era. I have very mixed feelings about it. Yes, it was easy work and the generous salary he paid me will be sorely missed, but it did eat into precious time off and was sometimes very hard to fit it. But time never stands still, so I guess all I can do is accept and move on.

After my final bout of filing for Mr G on Tuesday morning, I spent two hours trailing around every single charity shop in town trying to find an outfit for a 1920’s Speakeasy party I’ve been invited to. Going home empty handed, I did what I should have done right from the word go and logged onto eBay and bought something off there. I also accidentally bought a dress from Hong Kong which wasn’t going to get here until long after the party, but luckily, I managed to cancel that and get a refund. The dress I bought has arrived and it fits, but I’m convinced it makes me look fat. However, I’m convinced everything makes me look fat, so hey. And that was Tuesday.

Wednesday, I’d sold a few things on eBay so had to parcel them up and drive to the post office to send them off. Then I drove the thirty minutes to spend the day with my friend and formatter Becky Wright of Platform Publishing House, to brainstorm about Erinsmore and sort out what was happening with it. On the way home, I swung round the supermarket to collect the week’s shopping I’d ordered the night before. And that was Wednesday.

Back to work Thursday. I know a lot of people write and do things on their books in the evenings, but I honestly don’t know how they do it. I was aware I still needed to write my blog. Normally, on my usual shifts, I have time to write it during the day on Thursday, Friday or even Saturday, but I was working all three days this week so wasn’t sure when I would get around to it. I knew it wouldn’t happen Thursday evening, Miss F was home, the house would be noisy, she’d want the TV on in the room where my desk is, so it would be impossible to construct a blog under those circumstances.

I’ll write it Friday, I thought, after all, I would be home just after five and would have the evening to myself. Miss F always catches the 5:40 bus to work and is gone until I have to leave to pick her up at 9:40. Plenty of time to write at least half the blog, then I could finish it when I got home from work Saturday as she’d be at work again.

Well, you know what they say about best laid plans. I had a customer walk in five minutes before I was due to go home. They then proceeded to waste my time for almost an hour before leaving without buying anything. Grinding my teeth in hungry frustration, I drove home an hour later thinking at least the house would be quiet and empty, so I could just have a quick dinner and then get on with the blog.

I walked into a wall of sound. Music playing. Miss F in her PJ’s noisily unstacking the dishwasher in the kitchen. I stopped and stared at her.

“What are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t get to work, there’s a telegraph pole down on the road and the buses have all been cancelled, I’ve called work, they’re ok with it.”

“Oh.”

“Nana dropped off a ton of wood for you that Grandad’s sawn up.”

I looked. Three, large dumpy bags were standing in the middle of the kitchen full of logs and kindling. I groaned. That meant I needed to lug them outside to the log box and stack them all, in the dark, in the rain.

“I was hoping, as I’m home, we could have a fire tonight.”

I groaned again. That meant the fire had to be cleaned out and re-laid.

“Did you remember you stripped off all the beds this morning?”

I groaned. No, I hadn’t, so they had to be remade.

“Oh, and the cat’s just been sick on the bathroom floor!”

By the time I finally sat down to eat my dinner it was gone eight o’clock. The only silver lining to the evening being that as I now didn’t have to drive to pick Miss F up from work, I could have a glass of wine with dinner, or maybe two. But of course, no blog got written that evening.

Next day, Saturday, because I’d worked an hour longer on Friday, my boss said so long as we weren’t busy, I could leave off at four. Good, I thought, because I must get my blog written before I went to pick up Miss F from work at 9:40.

I was home just after four and did all the essential things I had to do in terms of feeding livestock and putting laundry on, and had an early dinner as I was hungry. I promised myself a ten-minute rest then I’d tackle my blog, so I laid my head back and shut my eyes, only to be jerked awake by the cat leaping on me. Completely disorientated, I blinked around, it felt late, it felt really late. I peered at the clock, it was 9:30pm, I’d been asleep for over three hours! Quickly, I pulled myself together and went to get Miss F, so obviously nothing was written on the blog last night.

And now it’s Sunday morning. I really meant to get up super early and get it written and posted by the usual time, but once again, my body had other plans. I didn’t wake up until gone 8:30am so it was already too late to pretend I’d got the blog all written beforehand in the normal way. Sorry. I think my body is trying to tell me something. Luckily, even though I’m back to work tomorrow and Tuesday, I then have three days off, I’m working Saturday, and then I have a whole glorious eight days holiday in a row. Bliss. But I know it will go by in a flash, because days off always do.

Anyway, I need to get a move on. It’s now 10am and I’m meeting a fellow local author for coffee at 11am and I still need to get ready and have breakfast. Busy day, as usual, but at least I’ve had lots of sleep.

Things will be back to normal next week, I promise, and I hope you can forgive me for making you wait for A Little Bit of Blake and I hope your coffee didn’t go cold waiting for me.

Have a great week, as usual, I’d love to hear any thoughts or comments.

All the best

Julia Blake

The Trip of a Lifetime… maybe

Earlier this week I received two letters from the college that Miss F attends, both about upcoming educational trips. One was fairly standard, a day trip to a nearby animal facility where there would be a chance for students to participate in animal related activities and listen to experts in the field blah blah blah. All perfectly normal and necessitating nothing more strenuous than paying a small sum of money and making sure Miss F reaches college on time and takes either a packed lunch or money to buy something there. But the other letter…

Well, the other letter I had to read twice because I couldn’t quite believe it the first time. Your child is being offered a unique opportunity – ok, that’s nice – to travel to a world class animal observation and experimental field study site – ooh, that sounds exciting – where they will get the chance to study a wide range of animals in their natural environment – brilliant – and work alongside experts who have been conducting long term observation and interactive studies – amazing, where do I sign her up – the trip is for two weeks – wow, that’s a long time – and will take place during the summer holiday in 2021 – umm, that’s a bit of a wait and it’s technically after she’s left college but I suppose that doesn’t matter – to show interest in your child going on the field trip to Honduras – ok, that’s… wait… what… where?! – please complete the attached form and enclose a non-refundable deposit of £150 to be deducted from the total cost of the trip which is £2700 – how much?!

Yep, that’s right, £2700. Ok, that does cover all travel, accommodation, food and activities, but that is a huge sum of money however you look at it, and then there will be her shots, clothes and spending money on top of that. I thought about this trip for the rest of the day until Miss F got home from college. I’ve always been a firm believer in trying to send her on as many school trips as I could possibly manage. When she was in primary school, of course, they were much simpler, tending to be day trips to somewhere local and only costing a nominal sum. In her last year of primary school, at age ten, she went away for four days to a youth centre place where they all slept in dorms and their days were filled with activities. It cost about £150, if I remember rightly, and she was desperate to go so the money was found and off she went.

I quite enjoyed my four days alone, and while she was gone I completely gutted her bedroom, redecorated it and transformed it from a Barbie pink hell to a grown up girls room complete with the birdcage wallpaper she’d seen in a local shop and fallen in love with. I think she enjoyed that trip, apart from being homesick and not liking the food.

In middle school, the trips got more complicated, more expensive and more fraught with tension. Who would she sit with on the coach? If it was for longer than a day, what would the sleeping arrangements be like? Who would she be sharing a room with? Would it be her friends? Would they all still be friends at the end of trip? What would the food be like? I remember a four-day trip to Cromer – a seaside town not too far away – that all ended in tears when a friendship group exploded under pressure and everyone got hit by the shrapnel.

One February, when I think Miss F was probably about twelve or so, an email came through from her school on a day I happened to be at home. There were an unexpected four seats available for a trip to see Mathilda in the West End and were any children in her year interested in going? It was for the year above hers, but there had been four last minute cancellations and as the trip was in two-days-time, it would literally be the first four parents to get to the bursar’s office next day with cash who would get the tickets. The cost was for £40, this would cover travel and tickets. Not bad for a West End show, but it left me in a quandary.

I knew Miss F would love to go and I really wanted her to go, BUT I didn’t have £40 cash I could lay my hands on before the next morning. I was up to the max on my overdraft limit and although I was being paid the next day, it wouldn’t be in time for me to get the cash out and beat the other parents to school to get a ticket.

Miss F came home from school, apparently it had been announced in assembly as well, but she’d resigned herself to not being able to go because she knew that money was really tight for us. We ate dinner and every time I looked at her, I felt so guilty. I wanted her to go on that trip and desperately racked my brains trying to think where I could get the money from. Cursing my bastard of an ex-husband who never contributed a penny to his daughter’s upkeep, I went sadly upstairs to put away laundry, leaving Miss F to have an ice lolly in front of the TV – my rather pathetic way of making it up to her.

Putting away my underwear, I found that the drawer wouldn’t shut properly and realised something had probably fallen down the back, so took the whole drawer out and found the rogue pair of knickers. Deciding to quickly tidy the drawer while I was at it, I started going through my underwear and suddenly found a plastic bank money bag tucked away at the back with money inside, £40 to be precise. I sat on the bed and stared at it, at that moment believing in heaven and guardian angels, until I suddenly remembered an indoor sale I’d done back in December, when I’d loaded all our unwanted stuff in the car and tried to flog it in a nearby village hall. These were the proceeds from that sale, I’d obviously tucked them in the drawer for safekeeping and then forgotten about them, what with Christmas and everything.

How weird is that? I once had a lodger who used to claim that you had to “put it out into the universe what you needed, and the universe would reply”, well, it certainly replied that day, and how coincidental was it that the sum I found was exactly the sum I needed. But I guess what you all want to know is, did Miss F get a ticket and go on the trip? The answer is, yes, of course she did. When I make up my mind to go for something, I go for it at 7.30am in the morning before the school is even open. We parked outside the school and sat in the car and ate breakfast watching the door like a hawk. We followed the first teacher in and sat outside the bursar’s office waiting for them to arrive. We were the first by a good thirty minutes and she got one of the four tickets. She had a simply amazing time and was left with a wonderful memory of a magical show, all thanks to her mother’s bad memory and a lucky find in a knicker drawer!

In the last year of middle school there was the big one, the annual trip to the South of France to stay in an activity centre where they would all participate in a week of full on activities such as kayaking, catamaran sailing, water skiing, mountain biking, swimming and diving. Miss F really wanted to go, and it did look amazing, but it was pricy – £800 – and then of course there would be clothes, spending money and a sleeping bag to add to that. The school had divided up the £800 into a deposit of £150 and then four even amounts spread out over the year. It would be tight, but it was doable, especially as Miss F’s grandparents offered to pay the deposit and give her some spending money. So, we signed the forms and paid the non-refundable deposit (it’s always non-refundable) and then we were committed and had to find the rest of the money.

We managed the way we’ve always managed to pay for things we wanted, we tightened our belts even further, we both went though all our belongings and did a couple of car boot sales, we sold a lot on eBay, we saved every spare penny we could to make the quarterly payments and we managed it. But, during this period, Miss F learnt a very valuable life lesson.

There was this girl she was friendly with, I’ll call her Miss C. Now, I wasn’t too keen on this friendship, Miss C, probably through no fault of her own, was a bit rough around the edges and not in a good way. She was hardnosed and a taker, and I was concerned that she was not only taking advantage of Miss F’s generosity but was undermining the “work hard to get what you want” ethic that I’ve always tried to instil in Miss F. I didn’t like her lazy, sponging attitude to life and her belief that it owed her a living and it would be up to the government to support her when she left school. However, I’m not stupid, and I knew banning this friendship would make it all the more attractive to Miss F, so I kept quiet and hoped it would run its course.

Anyway, Miss C would wait for Miss F at the top of our road and the two girls would walk to school together, and on the way, Miss C would buy herself a rather unhealthy breakfast of either McDonalds or some other such thing, with the £5 her mother would give her every day to buy breakfast. Now, this caused some friction in my household as Miss F has never left this house without a breakfast inside her, and other than high days and holidays, I would never even consider going to a fast food outlet for breakfast, and I certainly wouldn’t give a child £5 each morning in lieu of a decent breakfast at home.

Miss F didn’t see it quite this way, in her eyes the fact Miss C’s mother gave her such a princely sum of money every day quite possibly… maybe… meant that Miss C’s mother loved Miss C more than I loved Miss F. That assumption hurt me, I must admit, but I swallowed it down and simply waited. And then, the trip to France came about and Miss C desperately wanted to go. Very excitedly the two girls chatted about it on the way home from school and made plans to sit together and share a tent – as you can imagine, I was thrilled about this. However, next day all their plans came crashing about their ears. Miss C wasn’t going on the trip because her mother claimed, and I quote “I can’t afford £800 for you to ponce off on holiday.”

Miss F was disappointed, and for the next couple of days swung between being elated that she was going and being upset that her friend wasn’t. Then at dinner one night, we had the following conversation.

“Mum.”

“Yes?”

“Miss C’s mum gives her £5 every day to buy breakfast,”

“Yes, she does, what of it?”

“Well, that’s £25 a week she’s spending just on breakfast. Does it cost you that much to buy breakfast for us to have at home?”

“Sweetheart, I spend about £40 a week on our shopping, and that’s for all our food for all our meals, plus the cats, and all our cleaning and toiletries, so, what do you think?”

“Oh.”

“Why do you ask?”

“I was just thinking, if Miss C’s mum gave her breakfast at home and saved the £25 a week instead, would she be able to afford for Miss C to go to France?”

“You do the maths, love, and tell me what you think?”

She did the maths.

“Mum?”

“Yes?”

“Is this what you mean when you say that you don’t waste money on stupid stuff, you save it for what’s really important?”

“Yes, it absolutely is.”

A valuable lesson was learnt that day, that it’s all too easy to fritter your money away on silly, inconsequential things and then not have it for things you really, really, need or want. Being on such a tight budget has taught me that, if nothing else. In fact, I even sometimes look at the cost of something and calculate how many hours I have to work to pay for it – that tends to help me decide if it’s a priority or not.

And in case you’re wondering – yes, she did go to France and yes, she did have an amazing time. And yes, the friendship with Miss C had fizzled out by the time the following year came around and Miss F went to France on the trip.

In upper school the trips became less frequent, there was the odd trip to the theatre if a play they were studying in English or Drama happened to be showing, or the odd geography or history trip, nothing really expensive or that involved staying away from home, so this letter about Honduras was like a bolt from the blue. I don’t really know anything about the country, other than it’s rough geographical location, so was unsure how stable it was – after all, there are so many horror stories about drug cartels and uprisings happening with depressing regularity in Central and South America – so how safe would it be for my 17 year old daughter to go there. It was far away, so very far away, and she suffers from travel sickness, and, of course, my mind kept circling back to the main obstacle, that it would cost almost £3000 to send her there. Almost four months wages. It was such a lot of money.

Miss F came home from school, already knowing that I’d received the letter. We talked. I basically told her that I appreciated what an amazing opportunity it was and that it would be a fantastic life experience, and that if she really, really, wanted to go, between us we would find a way to make it happen. She hesitated, then explained that although part of her was intrigued by the chance and realised it was potentially a once in a lifetime chance, the other part of her, the practical side which she totally gets from me – could see a number of drawbacks.

Number one was the cost. Yes, because she’s now working, between us we could probably meet each payment as it became due, but, if £3000 was to be spent on anything, wouldn’t it be better spent on driving lessons and a car? The university she’s looking at attending is a four-hour drive away, having a car is going to be an essential, and driving lessons are helluva expensive, as is buying a car, and as for insuring it…! There will also be the expense of renting a place to live whilst she’s at university – there will be deposits and upfront payments and every day living expenses to be met and she may not find a job straightaway.

Then there’s her travel sickness to consider, it is such a long way away and she’s never been on a plane before, how badly would it affect her? How ill would she be from such a long flight? Then there were the sanitary arrangements – I shuddered at the idea of her having to poop in a hole in the ground being watched by a bunch of monkeys. Apparently, one of her teachers who has done the trip before, said it was the most relaxing thing she’d ever done. Oka-a-ay, this must be some strange definition of the word “relaxing” I hadn’t previously been aware of. Miss F is quite anal (no pun intended) about her bathroom time and she was really not keen on the whole set up.

Finally, and this was not mentioned in the letter but was explained to the students at the meeting, the deposit of £150 and first payment of £650 would be due and payable before the students take their end of year exams this June. The trip is only available for level three students, and if any of the students fail their exams they will be relegated down to a level two or even level one so will be unable to go, but that payment is non refundable so it would be £800 down the pan. As Miss F quite sensibly said, “I’m confident about passing my exams, mum, but do I really want to put that kind of pressure on myself?” And I had to admit, that was a very good point.

So, she’s not going. And a part of me is sad, because it IS a fantastic opportunity, but, she’s only 16, she’s has a whole lifetime ahead of her to experience all that the world has to offer, and I’m sure she will, in time. But right now, she is correct in that there are other things we need to spend our money on, and £3000 is a LOT of money. I am aware, that there might be a few reading this who will now be scoffing in disbelief that we consider it to be an incredible amount of money, but to us it is.

And that, ultimately, is what life is all about, having to make the hard decisions and sometimes having to wear your sensible head when making them. I know that life experiences are priceless, but sometimes you do have to look at the bigger picture and choose what’s more important – a trip to a faraway country that you may, or may not enjoy, or use the money to pay for what you absolutely need right here and right now?

I feel Miss F made the right, the only decision, and once again I am relieved that I’ve somehow managed to raise such a level-headed and practical young woman.

This is me, signing out for another week, as always, I would love to hear your comments, and you can always contact me on social media or leave a comment below.

Have a good week and take care of yourselves.

Regards

Julia Blake