Help me to be a better driver

 Last Autumn I was visiting relations near Worthing on the south coast, and unbeknown to me was clocked doing 57 mph in a 50 mph speed limit area.  The forbidding-looking Penalty Notice in bold black print arrived a week later, which informed me that I could either have points on my licence or I could attend a half-day speed awareness driving course in the geographical area where the offence was committed – a two-hour drive away from Bristol.

I opted for the latter (most people do) and presented myself on a cold January morning just after New Year.  I had been on one of these courses before in Bristol six years earlier, and knew what to expect, but was interested to find out whether the focus of the course had improved or varied from one region to another.  Not really in both cases: it left me once again wanting to have a rant – and this time I’ve got a blog on which to do it. 

The speakers rambled through the importance of keeping to the speed limit, the potential fatal results to yourself and others if you don’t, the distances you need in which to come to a halt after braking according to the speed you’re doing and the prevailing weather conditions, a terrifying video about an accident, quizzes to test our knowledge on speeds, distances, survival rates, percentage of different types of accidents in the United Kingdom, the dizzying multiple rules about speed limits according to what sort of road, how many lamp posts there are as you’re going through a village (yes, really) and so on.  This was all very worthy and valid, and it was important to be reminded of these facts. 

My rant is that this is simply not enough.

Give me the facts, certainly – but it’s essential to address the psychological reasons why people speed, carve each other up and are generally inconsiderate on the road.  We need to be forced to confront ourselves and our insane behaviour when we’re behind the wheel, and to be given the tools to deal with it.

This is what drivers need above all:

Road Rage.  How to stop ourselves from feeling road rage – what anger management arguments will stop us in our tracks?  How should we react when others show road rage towards us?  How should we deal with a driving situation caused by another vehicle which is patently unfair to us?

Age.  The age factor – the younger and more hormonal men and women are, the more intolerant and quick to anger we are likely to feel.  The older we are the more likely we are to make mistakes;

Unrelated problems.  When we’re on the road, how to compartmentalise our personal problems so that they don’t affect our driving;

Asleep at the wheel.  How to deal with tiredness and general lack of concentration – apart from opening the window and turning on the radio;

Competitive behaviour.  How to deal with competitiveness on the road: I’m not talking about being boy racers here, but a situation that happens to me every morning, on a stretch of motorway with a 50 mph speed limit.  The car in the next lane is large, and doing (say) 50 mph, and I’m in a small car being squeezed over, with another car behind me – so tempting to up the speed slightly to 55 mph “just to get passed him”, yet we risk being caught by speed cameras.

Lorries.  European lorry drivers urgently need to be taught all this on refresher courses every year, as they drive for a living, and tend to use their large vehicles to gain advantage – like the classic bully in the playground.  The type of accidents their mistakes cause are far more serious.  I’m tired of hearing that x number of people were killed because the continental driver forgot that we drive on the left.

There is one area – drinking and driving – where in this country all these aspects are dealt with strongly via powerful advertising and in other media, and I understand that drink and drive accidents are lower than in many other parts of the world.  I believe we have the Scandinavian example to thank for that.

The course was a half day one – and I believe that what I’ve mentioned above needs at least another half day, and should not be restricted to people who have been caught speeding.  We should all be forced to go on these courses with refreshers every two years, or risk losing our licences.  The extra cost should be met by us the drivers.

At both courses six years apart I asked the question about dealing with these psychological issues, which after all lie at the bottom of most road incidents.  I was told there were no plans to incorporate this into their course, and it would be too expensive anyway.  None of the speakers said “Good idea though”.  One of the attendees was a barrister (lawyer) of some standing in London who drives a sports car and in a jokey fashion conveyed how he was rather proud of the way he had avoided speeding offences (up until this one, that is).  I would say he was in dire need of being pulled up by his bootstraps and being forced to go on a driving psychology course, if it only existed. 

Is this a woman’s viewpoint then?  Does male pride come into it?

This is a crowded little country where most adults own cars, goods are rarely transported by rail and lorries from the continent are now permitted free access, including the very heavy goods vehicles, for which roads and bridges have been strengthened.  This is a lethal cocktail, and it is unlikely that drivers will be persuaded to give up their cars for public transport.

Do you have the same problems in your country?  Do drivers respect speed limits?  Do they respect drink and drive laws?

I’d love to know your thoughts on this – if you think I’m wrong, do tell me why.

-oOo-

Photo Finish

From Lonicera's digital archive

Spring

-oOo-

Good night and God bless (II)

John Dillon Humphreys, 13/11/1927 – 18/03/2013

This is the text of my tribute to John given in the church where the funeral service was held, with images from the presentation on a loop given at the venue where refreshments were offered afterwards:

"I was loved by a wonderful man for 26 years.  

I met John in 1985, when I volunteered to help backstage with the Bristol Opera company as a way to recover from divorce.  It was agreed that I should dress in a peasant girl dress and cap at the forthcoming sing-through of Merrie England, and offer round trays of marzipan in the interval.  I’m amazed to think of that now; I must have been really desperate to climb out of the hole I was in to do something so conspicuous and way out of my comfort zone. 

John then invited me out for dinner, assuring me over and over that he wasn’t trying to date me because there were 25 years between us.  I joined the backstage team at the Bristol Opera Company helping with the makeup during the week of the opera, and I gradually started to cheer up, and put on weight thanks to all the dinners to which I was being treated by John.  He has always called me Tich because of my height, but the irony did not and continues not to escape me.

I learned about his working life as a civil engineer, and on one occasion we travelled round the country visiting various dams he had been involved in, notably Winscar, the first asphaltic concrete dam in England, of which he was the proud designer.  I still can’t believe that he encouraged me to bring along tapes of music I liked, because he told me he would be interested to hear them.  They were mostly folk music, to which he listened politely.  Knowing now of his total intolerance to any music that wasn’t classical, I appreciate that he must have been trying to impress me big time by pretending to like my favourite group, Steeleye Span - or “Stainless Steel”, as he called them.  I took him to one of their concerts once, and he could barely restrain himself from covering his ears.

I got to know him and gradually his family - Simon, Alison, Jo and their mother Blanche, and sometimes accompanied John and his elder daughter Alison on days out, such as flying in hot air balloons, sailing round Bristol harbour and exploring local beauty spots.  During this time I learned about Clifton Town, the folk opera about the Bristol Riots which he had written years before. 

He had already staged it at the Hippodrome by the time I met him, and a trimmed production took place in 1989 at the Theatre Royal.  I’ve always loved Clifton Town, and am grateful to Pam Rudge for singing “The Song of the River Avon” today.  It was Alison’s favourite song, and mine too, and in fact I named my house Avonsong after it.  It would be a dream come true to be able to stage it again one day.

I’d like to say we shared our hobbies, but it was more a case of John sharing mine.  He supported me with my photography, always keen to take me on assignments, always questioning my judgment on apertures, composition or systematic errors, and using the tripod for stability to avoid camera shake.  He would soothe me when I panicked because the camera suddenly didn’t work, encouraged me with the results, even when they weren’t that good.  We belonged to Backwell Camera Club, and he would push me to go on the evenings when I would have rather remained curled up on the sofa.  A member reminded me this week that although he came to keep me company, he always had questions to ask the speakers, usually prefaced by “I’m not a photographer, I’m just the stooge that accompanies Caroline Holder, and I’m known as Tripod Holder”.   (See pic below)

In the dark as we watched the slide show of the evening you would suddenly hear the obvious sound of John noisily unscrewing the metal top of his hip flask, and saying in a loud stage whisper “Fancy a tot of brandy?” to everyone around him.

For 5 years he escorted me to rugby games at the Memorial Ground when Bristol were playing at home, back when they were in the first division and I was taking pictures of the game for their programmes.  John and I would sit on the touchline usually in the pouring rain or sleet, munching his way through hard boiled eggs with bread and butter, Kit Kats, taking slugs of brandy while still managing to puff his way through a cigarette and hang on to my next roll of film, and call out instructions on which direction I should run to catch the try.  The miserable weather conditions which seem to go with rugby got to me in the end, but John was disappointed when I stopped.

In the last few years I have discovered the joy of blog writing, and John insisted on vetting the text before I uploaded it.  He always had valid points to contribute and mistakes to correct.  Oh yes, there was nothing he liked better than finding spelling errors.

He was unimpressed by my interest in languages though, sharing the popular belief that Englishmen are no good at foreign languages so you might as well stick to English.  He certainly proved himself right once when he was designated by his firm to entertain a bus load of visiting French civil engineers on a tour of various dams, and in an attempt to communicate better with them, as they traversed and earth-filled dam he conveyed his preference for large dams (forgetting that the French for dam is barage) by saying “Moi je préfère traverser les grandes dammes”, which left them open-mouthed.

I regret to say I didn’t share most of his hobbies, among which was inspecting anything under water, such as newts in the pond and various fish and octopus in the sea with his snorkel – it all seemed sort of creepy to me, though I found it more interesting when he started photographing them with an underwater camera. 

The behaviour of ants was fascinating to him, and when visiting my parents in Spain over many years he would sit by the pool staring down at the patio floor studying processions of ants, which he would follow and feed with various choice morsels to see how they reacted.  One year the ants carved a route through the kitchen, up into the cupboard with the pots and pans and through a hole in the wall to the bathroom, along the rim of the bath, up the wall and out through the window.  He spent a lot of time in the bathroom that year studying them, and waited in vain every subsequent year, but they had changed routes.

Sailing was a great love, and I failed miserably at this.  It was in his family, he had shared the fondness for this activity many years before with his wife Blanche – and I was absolutely pathetic.  I couldn’t cope with the concept of clinging on by my fingernails to a very large object swaying through water which didn’t stick to the left bank and which you couldn’t stop by braking.  We went sailing on the Broads once, and he could barely conceal his disappointment with my lack of enthusiasm for standing on the deck in bracing weather, legs apart, arms akimbo, being buffeted by icy rain, and instead took refuge in the galley.  He had said I’d be able to sit and trail my hand in the water and photograph birds, but it transpired I was expected to “help” – it was tote that barge and lift that bale, and dodge out of the way when the sail was swinging towards me while trying not to be sick over the side.

In fact if there was a requirement for curriculum vitae for starting relationships the “hobbies” section would have ruled me out straight away.

I did however share his interest for his type of music.  I enjoy opera entirely thanks to John.  His performing interests moved from light opera to grand opera and in the last 10 years back to Gilbert & Sullivan.  He was an enthusiastic supporter of the Bristol Gilbert & Sullivan Operatic Society, not just because he loved the music, but because he loved the people who formed part of the society. 

<< John singing "A policeman's lot is not a happy one" - (or as they say - not a "nappy" one...)

I doubt they’ll ever forget how he would encourage them into evil ways at rehearsals by - again - producing his hip flask with brandy at the drop of a hat.  They were his other family, and he didn’t miss a rehearsal simply because he couldn’t bear to do so, even near the end when he was so ill.  I’m so grateful to them for singing “For he is an Englishman” today.

Four score years and five is not a bad age to reach, and he had lived life to the full.  People will remember him as a gentle gentleman, a modest man, a kind boss who promoted staff with promise and never took the credit for their achievements, and as his former secretary Marion has told me, the most civil of engineers.  When I would quote to him the testimonials given by friends and colleagues, he could never understand why people liked him.  “And yet everybody said he was such an agreeable man, and he couldn’t think why... “

This may have been because he understood his failings – mostly.  His determination to only look at the positive side of people sometimes took on the naïve attitude of speaking up for Attila the Hun because he had always been nice to him.  However this didn’t extend to his instinctive dislike of certain television personalities, which I couldn’t enumerate because we would be here all day.  I will tell you about one though – during the endless questionnaires asked by different medical teams in his last few weeks, to the question “any allergies?” he would reply “yes, one”, then pause as their pens were poised in the air.  “Tony Blair” he would announce triumphantly – it took them by surprise every time.

During the early seventies he had cause to examine his own behaviour, and over a period of 3 weeks he knelt for twenty minutes each day in Bath Abbey, where he sought unselfish answers to many questions.  He eventually experienced what was for him an epiphany.  He realised that in searching for genuine selfless love within himself he had been looking in the wrong place.  Love was not something within him that could be shone onto others.  It was a light – or a loving spirit - shining onto him from outside, and all he could do was try to reflect it onto others.  He also felt it was reflecting onto him, forgiving him his past sins and telling him he wasn’t worthless.  He had sought and found a way to a possible future redemption, and he often told me that he was a different person from that day onwards. 

This Loving Spirit was always with him.  It was an immense comfort to him during the very sad time when the Humphreys lost Alison, and when his brother Peter died, and it enabled him to bear his own final illness with the most astonishing fortitude.

I can’t quite believe I shall never again hear his footsteps coming into my study as I’m typing away, and his saying “Whatcha doin’ Tich?”; or watching me park the car and unable to stop himself from commenting “The trouble with women is that they’ve got no spatial sense”; or coming back from Waitrose with his five oysters and calling out “’Tis me, I’m back!  It’s Handsome Jack!” or in reply to someone stating “You’re such a gent”, saying “It’s just my very good impression of a gentleman”. 

He had a warm, generous, loving personality and great personal integrity, and was immensely proud of his children and grandchildren Jack, Katy, Frankie and Rowan.  He also loved our cats, Rusty and Banjo, more than he ever believed he would.  He wasn’t just my partner but my best friend.  He helped me through depression, he spoke up for me when he could, always gave me his full support on every decision I made, and told me off regularly for under-valuing myself.  And he was that most extraordinary of men in my life – he loved me for myself, and for a very long time.  He was my oak tree.

“Go gentle into that good night”, dearest Humph, and as you used to say every night first to the cats and then to me, good night Humph, God bless."

-oOo-

A Prayer

~ Max Ehrmann ~
(1906)

Let me do my work each day;
and if the darkened hours of despair overcome me,
may I not forget the strength that comforted me
in the desolation of other times.

May I still remember the bright hours that found me walking
over the silent hills of my childhood,
or dreaming on the margin of a quiet river,
when a light glowed within me and I promised my early God
to have courage amid the tempests of the changing years.

Spare me from bitterness and from the sharp passions
of unguarded moments.
May I not forget that poverty and riches are of the spirit.
Though the world knows me not, may my thoughts and actions be such
as shall keep me friendly with myself.

Lift up my eyes from the earth, and let me not forget the uses of the stars.
Forbid that I should judge others lest I condemn myself.
Let me not follow the clamour of the world, but walk calmly in my path.
Give me a few friends who will love me for what I am;
and keep ever burning before my vagrant steps the kindly light of hope.

And though age and infirmity overtake me,
and I come not within sight of the castle of my dreams,
teach me still to be thankful for life,
and for time's olden memories that are good and sweet;
and may the evening's twilight find me gentle still.

~oOo~

 

A few more pictures...

The willing model

In the Doghouse

The Shy Photographer

A Hand Sandwich...

Christmas 2001, with my family

The earliest picture of us taken together - about 1988

-oOo-

Good night and God bless (I)

John Dillon Humphreys, 13/11/1927 – 18/03/2013

Gentle, noble John, my beloved partner, passed away the day after I wrote the last entry. 

On 14th February he had been diagnosed with lung cancer and secondaries in his spine and liver.  Barely a month and four days later his exhausted body gave up the fight.  I had intended to nurse him at home where the two cats he loved so much would be close by, and with the assistance of district nurses, but he never returned from his second visit to hospital. 

His younger daughter Jo spent many hours driving up and down the motorway to provide support and company, and the load was made lighter by her presence.  The time we had with him was so very brief, but I would not have had it any other way.  If he had sought clinical advice about his extreme tiredness over the previous three years he may well have discovered that he had not escaped his years of smoking, and that every puff of the cigarette had been one puff of air less when he needed it the most.  However this would have meant three years of uncomfortable and painful treatment, with his strength and morale being sapped little by little, and too long to have to live with the awful truth.

At first when his mind was clearer we talked to him, and he was never in any doubt about how much he was loved, and by how many.  Although he knew what was happening he remained philosophical throughout and showed little inclination to examine his feelings – as usual.  Jo asked him once if he was frightened, and he replied “Not really.  But I am curious about what’s going to happen the day after...” 

In the last two days in hospital he slipped into unconsciousness, and on Monday 18th March I had just left at 1 p.m. after sitting with him since 5.00 a.m., and Jo was with him when he peacefully took his last breath half an hour later.  That evening my ginger cat Rusty was nowhere to be found, and for the first time ever in 12 years he didn’t come bounding in when I called him.  I tried at fifteen minute intervals till 1.30 a.m. then had to give up.  John would never have gone to bed until he found him, but I was just too tired and on autopilot.  I left the cat flap open but there was no sign of him the following day.  My kindly neighbours saw me unable to cope with all this, and set to work – one walked up and down the road calling him and shaking a box of biscuits, and the other called at every single house in the road asking the owners to check their outbuildings in case Rusty had got shut in by mistake.  There was no sign of him.

While Jo sorted out the intricate paperwork required after a death and contacted the vicar and funeral director, I started advising people by e-mail, and tried to explain to John in my head that in a matter of hours we had gone from a household of four down to just two – just me and Banjo, my other cat.  I also begged him to help me find Rusty.  I didn’t think I would ever see my little ginger cat again, wondering if a fox had got him or he had wandered too far and got lost.  He had a chip under the skin, but who ever cares about picking up a stray cat, taking it to a vet and having it checked just in case?  It all just about pushed me over the edge. 

So at 1 a.m. when Rusty casually let himself in through the cat flap in the study where I was sitting, I screamed and just about squeezed the breath out of him as I blubbed at him about his poor sense of timing.  He just purred.  His fur was in perfect condition, with no sign of his having been in a fight, or slept rough in the field behind the house; he wasn’t hungry – just thirsty because he had had no insulin for 36 hours – he was warm and unharmed.  Perfectly happy, and glad to see me.

I was determined to write a eulogy which I would read out myself at John’s funeral – in fact I had started it a couple of weeks’ earlier when he was still at home.

“Whatcha doin’ Tich?” he called out.  I stopped and went to sit on the bed with him.

“You’ll never guess.”

“Try me”.

“I’ve started on your eulogy”

“Saying anything nice?”

“Nope, I’m telling people just what a nasty person you were”.

We smiled at each other.

“Will you show it to me when it’s finished?  There could be spelling mistakes...”

“Of course Humph.”

“Don’t forget to tell them about Bath Abbey.”

“Of course Humph.”

But we ran out of time. 

Afterwards I had plenty of time in which to write it – in Britain funerals take place at least a week after someone has died, and my employers at the hospital had been generous with me, insisting that I take as much time off as I needed to look after John and recover afterwards.  I also had time to prepare a slide show for my digital frame with over 360 images of him, his family and friends. 

In between times I slept, the cats with me on the bed most of the time.   One morning a few days after his death, the doorbell rang at 05:17 a.m.  I had just changed the doorbell a fortnight earlier, from a buzzer to one with a Big Ben chime, like an old grandfather clock.  The first half of the chime woke me, and I had jumped out of bed in fright as the second half sounded.  I had no intention of answering the door; I put my head out of the dining-room window and called, but there was no one there.  Annoyed, I went back to bed, and as I drew the quilt back over my head I suddenly smiled to remember that John would get up between 05:00 and 05:30 every morning to let the cats out, and that – who knows – maybe he had made the doorbell ring to tease me, and to remind me to open the cat flap.

Rusty and Banjo followed me about the house all the time, and Rusty would bring me ‘presents’ of the feathered variety (alas) to cheer me up...  Then one evening I had to go out to John’s car to collect things from the back seat, and left the front door of the house open.  The bleeps and flashing lights from the remote control added to the slamming of the car door brought both of them galloping out the door at top speed.  Rusty realised straight away it was only me and ran off, but Banjo came right up to the car to where I was standing having just slammed the door and stared at me with his eyes as big as saucers.  There was absolutely no doubt that they thought John had returned. 

John had asked to be buried in a church cemetery in Bathampton.  In the family plot there, his elder daughter Alison had been buried in 1996.  She died at the age of 43 of complex neurological problems which had beset her from the age of 27, and he wanted to be with her, as will her mother eventually. 

We had expected some 50 people to attend the funeral on Wednesday last, the 27th March, but more than twice that crammed into the small church until there was standing room only.  A song of his composition about the river Avon was sung by a professional singer friend of ours, and twenty-five members of the Bristol Gilbert & Sullivan Operatic Society came to sing one of the best known songs – “For he is an Englishman”, (from HMS Pinafore) which described John so well.  His friend Bill read out a beautiful poem by Max Ehrmann, and I read out my tribute to him without mishap and was pleased and comforted when the congregation laughed in the right places and gave me a clap at the end.

Thank you, thank you for the supportive comments, and to all who showered me with flowers, cards and kind words, and to my relations and neighbours who continue to keep an eye on me.  It has buoyed me up when I needed it most.

On Monday 18th March 2013 the world stopped spinning for a brief while, but now it is back on its orbit, and I must take up my life again without John’s love and support.   

(I’ll share with you the text of my tribute to John in Part II, and the poem by Max Ehrmann)

-oOo-

Update on John

Thank you so very much to the 12 kind people who left such lovely messages in the comments.  I've read every single one several times over, and have felt comforted. 

John is declining faster than any of us thought, and we will probably be moving him to St Peter's Hospice in the next day or two, where they will know how to keep him comfortable as he nears the end.  There I shall be able to visit him whenever and for as long as I want (hospital visiting hours are so restricting).  I had wanted to care for him at home for as long as I could, but he quickly became too weak and bedridden, and he's too heavy for me to manage on my own.  His intermittent mental confusion also means that he wants to move around frequently, and the district nurses who help people who are convalescing at home can't be expected to be there 24 hours a day.

Today during my four-hour visit it was the first time he did not acknowledge that he knew who I was, and I feel as lonely as it's possible to be.  I have in effect already lost him.  May he not tarry to feel any more pain, discomfort and helplessness.

-oOo-

John is ill

My blogging has slowed down considerably in the last couple of months, but there's no question of "I can't believe how long it's been since my last post... promise to improve" etc - this is not a blog about to be abandoned.  Writing is very important to me and I have lots of ideas, but my brains are scrambled at the moment.

My partner John hurt his back in early January while pulling weeds out of the pond, and when we learned that he had fractured a vertebra we understood why he had been in such pain and put it down to osteoporosis.  Many scans and a stay in hospital later we know that he has tumours up and down his spine, with the primary being in his right lung.

He's 85 and has had a very eventful life, but when you love them it's still too short, isn't it?  We've been together for 26 years and rarely argued.  We've led a gentle, contented life together and now I must come to terms - as must his loving family - with the fact that we have him for only a few more months or less. 

My employers - the NHS - are being very understanding and for now are allowing me all the time I need.  There are numerous practical issues to deal with and many more to come, but I'm so grateful to live in a country with an efficient system in place.  There's very little I've had to organise myself - i'ts all happening automatically.  In addition I've been overwhelmed by the support from family and friends, and if I hadn't gone off my food anyway, I would have the wherewithal to stuff myself with chocolates all day long.

As for John himself, he's always been a positive person, and has developed a faith of his own, so he has been philosophical about his situation.  I don't know how it will be further down the line.

I'm not as brave.  I'm frightened for him, particularly of his pain, and I'm frightened for my future.  I know that most people go through this, but that doesn't help me right now.  I'm losing my best friend and only true fan, and there's absolutely nothing I can do about it.

-oOo-

Tales from Elsewhere: No comments please, we’re British

I work for the National Health Service as research administrator at a Bristol hospital – no Florence Nightingale me.  I’m a number-crunching, spreadsheeting, mail-merging, envelope-stuffing, letter-writing, one-end-of-the-site-to-the-other-walking, glorified filing clerk, with four years behind me in the job, and probably 6 years to go till retirement.  The NHS is on the whole a kind employer keen on equal treatment for all, though perhaps a little anal on paperwork and bureaucracy generally (and don’t get me started on the parking problems).

What I’d like to tell you about today is a typical NHS situation and the equally typical British attitude towards it.

Last week I had to attend the latest monthly meeting to do with the new hospital which is soaring up relentlessly around us, and which will be finished in the spring of 2014. How and where we will all fit is a giant logistical jigsaw puzzle, and this meeting was to discuss with the architects where the various research departments will be located.  I attend representing my department, and report back to our professor what was said.  This time however I was in a mental fog as I left the meeting – I couldn’t possibly relate what the ‘salient points’ were.

Christmas interrupted the monthly routine, so it had been a couple of months since the last meeting when Gretchen, a laboratory technician, had turned up with her month old baby, a sweet little boy who slept angelically in his carry-cot throughout the whole meeting.  We had already started the meeting when she arrived 20 minutes late, so we stopped to ooh and aah at the baby and she told us how she had had a natural childbirth (ouch).  She was still on maternity leave, but had insisted on attending to represent her department and spent the next 20 minutes whispering about babies with her neighbour as she constantly tossed her waist-length brown wavy hair, while we tried to resume the meeting. 

This time we had been located in a meeting room which could comfortably seat 6 people, however by 09:30, the start time, 12 had appeared (to the surprise of the organiser) and we had all gradually shifted round the table, squeezing together to make room for newcomers.  Three architects (one short, one tall and thin, one tall and corpulent) were present on this occasion, and they shuffled their huge plans around as steaming coffee mugs were hastily withdrawn and put on the floor.  

Twenty minutes later we were discussing the placement of offices, desks, windows and doors when in came Gretchen, a rucksack on her back which was full to bursting, and the (now three-month old) baby on her arm.   Everything came to a halt once again as everybody cooed, and the architects shifted uncomfortably.  Thirteen adults and one baby competed for the available air – one fart and we would have had to dive out the window.

Mama then proceeded to relieve the rucksack of its contents as someone else held junior, and then she peeled off all the warm layers till she got down to a waist-length woolly poncho.  Five minutes later the large architect looked over the rims of his spectacles to check that he could start again, and the meeting resumed, while Gretchen had a further five minutes of whispered chat with her neighbour.  We were very cramped, with shoulders firmly touching, and I had a corner of the table wedged in my chest – one good shove from behind and it would have been death by misadventure.

Presently junior whimpered slightly, and mama fumbled underneath her poncho (no, I thought, surely not) and baby’s head disappeared underneath it.  Mr big architect’s face was a picture.  He faltered mid-sentence, got distracted, fumbled with the plans, stopped.  All three looked profoundly embarrassed.  Other people stepped in with questions, he recovered, resumed.  Gretchen asked questions too, tossing her (now thigh-length) hair.  I did my best to slam my jaw shut.   In the odd silences as we scrutinised the plans, sucking sounds were heard.

Then baby was whipped out from under mama’s poncho, his mouth was wiped and he was transferred to her knee, where she bounced him vigorously up and down for the twin purpose of burping (double check) and his entertainment (unimpressed).  About five minutes later the child whimpered again, and the whole procedure was repeated.

The meeting concluded at 11:00, and the sheet of paper in front of me was still as white as the driven snow.  If I was drooling it would have had nothing to do with the baby, but because I was slack-jawed for almost the entire time.  Aside from the initial minute when Gretchen appeared at 09:50, nobody said anything; no comment was made about what we had all witnessed. 

Oh to have been a fly on the roof of the architects’ car as they drove back to their office.

I asked one other administrator what she thought the following day when I ran into her and she confined herself to remarking ‘yes, it was a little distracting, I must admit’.

I consider myself to be liberal, laissez-faire, fine with natural behaviour such as breast-feeding in public and so on, but it struck me forcibly that there are times when it isn’t appropriate and when it is unfair on everybody else.  Gretchen wasn’t to know the room would be too small, but it clearly did not cross her mind to wonder whether we would find it distracting if she did not retire to the background.  I’ve noticed that mothers often sit in a back row to breastfeed, or go briefly into another room, express their milk into a baby’s bottle instead ... or leave the child with someone for a few hours.  What will it be next time – will she expect to change the baby’s nappy too?

The NHS adheres strictly to non-discriminatory behaviour for both patients and staff, which is admirable, but sometimes the non-discrimination can be mutually exclusive.  You can’t champion a mother’s rights to breastfeed if it also means you are neglecting your staff’s rights to hold an effective meeting, at which approximately half the time was spent being distracted from the work in hand for one reason or another.  The trouble is that mothers’ rights are such a Sacred Cow that no one would dare challenge them.  Earth Mothers and work don’t always mix.

The general response I received from colleagues was definitely non-committal, and from friends outside work to whom I made comments it was ‘aah, how sweet, why shouldn’t she breastfeed’ (hello?  Have you been listening to what I said?).  I admit I’m not brave enough to take on the NHS about this – unless Gretchen changes junior’s nappy at the next meeting. 

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Photo Finish -

from Lonicera's non-digital archive

(John's way of reminding me that it's my turn

to do the gardening...)

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La Honoria - Part Two (of two)

Clearly I had been gone from Argentina too long, for there were other horrors to face, and my reactions were just as limp.
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As I walked down the dimly lit polished tile corridor one evening I saw a black blurr right in front of me.  I leapt back in alarm, which is just as well, because it was a large black tarantula with hairy legs which had obviously lost its way.  Unnerved by the large screaming human it scuttled hither and thither, making this human scream even louder.  But at least on that occasion I had somewhere to run to. 
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aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh..................

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Shortly afterwards I was having a shower in the Beatrix Potter bathroom and minding my own business when I happened to glance up at the showerhead as I rinsed my hair (as you do) and there on the wall behind was the tarantula’s younger brother or sister, just two feet above the suds on my head.  If the water had suddenly run cold I wouldn’t have noticed, frozen as I was with horror and by the knowledge that the creature and I were going to have to get along for the extra few minutes it would take to finish washing and turn off the taps.  To run screaming for the towel at that point was not an option.  I don’t know how I did it, but my eyeballs never moved away from it as I went through the motions; in fact I’m sure I didn’t blink.

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I slept in an attractive room where I could keep both door and windows open at night to keep cool with the through-breeze.  I had the inner verandah on one side, enclosed by mosquito screens, and the outer verandah on the other side, where the windows similarly protected me from mosquitoes.  One night I noticed that the dogs weren’t making their usual snuffly whiny sounds as they settled down on the outer verandah to sleep, and someone commented that they had been out earlier in the day with the riders herding cattle, and on their way back had been left behind sniffing about for skunks.
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I fell asleep immediately in the quiet of the night with the singing crickets for company, but was awoken some time later coughing and choking – to the most appalling stench I have ever experienced.  It was as if something had grabbed me by the throat, and I gasped for air.  And then I heard the snuffly, whiny sounds, and knew straight away what had happened. 
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One or more skunks had fought back with spirit in their usual way, by backing up against the perceived enemy and raising their hind quarters to emit a jet of the most evil, stinking, concentrated substance on the planet.  The dogs would have run away howling, fleeing not the little animals but the consequence of their aggression, which was now fixed to their coats for a very long time.  Falling exhaustedly on the verandah just outside my bedroom window, they were now trying to get to sleep.
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I burrowed under the sheet, preferring to perspire than have nothing but polluted air between me and the dogs.  I wondered whether even the mosquitoes were staggering about.
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There were of course, many compensations for the aggressive fauna.  The bird population on the farm was prolific.  Bird photography is not my strong point, and I wish I’d had longer to practice. Among others, there were magpies, pygmy owls, parrots, ibis, whistling ducks, small kestrels, spoonbill ducks, grey blue tanagers, caracaras, falcons, lapwings, plovers, warblers, woodpeckers and the ubiquitous little ovenbird.
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Woodpecker

Parrots

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The sticky black topsoil on the farm is the type that gardeners in England swoon over, so rich in nutrients that due to the warm climate and the rainfall it took only four months to harvest time with vegetable crops.  Michèle had a small patch in part of one of the fields where she grew marrows, melons, water melons, pumpkin, squash, globe courgettes and other large vegetables. 

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While I was staying there the women and children all went to work on this soil one day, and I went along just for the ride, and to take pictures while the children played.  The black mud was so sticky that the going would get harder and harder as it oozed between their toes and caked their feet until they looked like beings with ten league boots.
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...the mothers planted out the squash seedlings...

...while the children played in the mud

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The downside of all this was that there were no paved roads within the property, or beyond the gate and to the village 5 kilometres away.  When it rained it was very difficult to drive into the village and it would have taken an hour to walk; when it poured the children cheered, because it was either a question of going to school on horseback or not at all.  Sometimes their father would take them all in the carricoche, a contraption he had made consisting of a large pony and trap with tyres and a cabin perched on the top, so that all seven could ride together.

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The village is so small that the children at the little primary school all knew each other’s families, and it was quite common for Michèle’s children to go and play at someone else’s house after school.  There were no mobile phones then so their mother would drive into the village some time later and cruise around until someone called after her to tell her they had seen the children at so-and-so’s house, and she would head in that direction to collect them and take them home for dinner.
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From one day to the next the idyll became a nightmare. 

There was only herself and her mother in the house on the winter afternoon of 24th June 2002, and she had lit the fire in the sitting-room to warm the rest of the house.  When the time came to drive to the village to collect the children from school, she noticed that her mother was looking groggy, and concerned in case she had taken a double dose of her tablets by mistake, decided at the last minute to take her along with her, and they travelled the few kilometres to the school together in the car. 

On the way back with the children they stopped at the silos, where her husband had an office.  As she was looking at some paperwork she glanced out of the window across the fields and was puzzled by a curl of smoke in the distance.  She wondered who was burning stubble in their fields, and as they drove back she saw one of the farm workers approaching them on the tractor.  Old José had no teeth whatsoever and it usually took a while to make out what he was saying, but this time there was no mistaking his words.  He pointed urgently towards the house and said simply “Your house is burning.”

Her mind racing, she tried to shut out the hubbub that erupted in the car as she concentrated on driving safely towards the house.  When they got there they all spilled out of the car and gazed in horror at the conflagration around them.  The fire had caught hold and was already out of control.  The nearest fire station was several villages away. 

Michèle ran round the house trying to gain entry where the fire had not yet caught hold to see if she could rescue anything – the priceless O’Dwyer documents dating back 800 years... her own family photographs… mementoes of her beloved father who had passed away 8 years previously… some clothes… Honor’s letters in the old biscuit tins… but it was too hot and she realised it was out of the question; she would be putting herself in danger if she tried anything brave.

She picked up a hose and cast it down again – what use was a hose in such a furnace?  She was vaguely aware of her eldest son grabbing it from her to use it in keeping down the surface temperature of a dangerously hot gas canister, and of his shouted commands telling everybody to move out of the way because the box where the ammunition for hunting guns was stored was inevitably going to overheat and set the bullets off.

As the other members of the family were summoned and kept in touch by the various people meandering about anxiously, Michèle did the only thing of which she felt capable – she sat down on the ground with her back against the trunk of a tree, lit a cigarette and watched her husband’s family home for generations and hers for the dozen years of turning it into her own, ascend in orange sparks and flying ash soaring upwards into the twilight sky. 

“Will I lose my job?” cried the housekeeper.  At that point Michèle could not bring herself to think about it or reply.  All she could think was “I’ve lost my home and all my belongings”, and kept silent.

Her husband Mick had been in Buenos Aires on business for two months when he was told.  Ever the pragmatist, he was shocked but practical.  He offered to come home, but she told him not to on her account.  She saw no reason to upset him further, and she could manage with the others to help her.

The fire brigade arrived at last two hours later, but there was little for them to do.  She somehow managed to stay serene in the presence of her worried children and distressed mother as she rounded them up briskly and put them back in the car for the drive over to their eldest son’s home for the night. 

The following day she returned and was struck afresh with grief to see twisted metal bedsteads and pieces of furniture that had somehow survived, pathetically strewn over the ground in a still gently smouldering, evil smelling, amorphous mass.  Strangely, the fireplace still had the logs nestled in it by her the afternoon before.

From then on life became a bewildering whirl of activity, and she discovered for the first time what it was really like to have absolutely no clothes except for what they had been wearing on the day of the fire.  Her eldest son was recently married and lived in his own house adjoining their property, and they lived with him and his wife until they could move to another temporary accommodation, since there was not enough room for them all.

It was painful to keep returning to hunt for things, particularly on one occasion when she came across one of the local policemen from the village and went to offer help when she realised he had a bag with him and was sifting through the ashes looking for salvageable objects he could keep for himself or sell.

The family knew that the fire must have originated from the fireplace in the sitting room despite the fact that it had been protected by a fireguard, but learned some time later that it could have been the chimney which had ignited and the fire had spread rapidly because of inadequacies in the false ceiling which had been installed some years before. 

As the garden had not been affected by the fire, Michèle drove a trailer to it one morning and with some help started to dig up every plant she had ever loved and nurtured, and over the next six months transported them with care to their interim home, the land around the silo offices from where she had first seen the smoke.  They were replanted carefully in a field, and today continue to be the same riot of colour they had been before.  Cuttings have supplied the gardens of her children’s homes since that time.

They found another job for their housekeeper.  It was decided in the end that the house would not be re-built in the same location because it had always been a time-consuming exercise to drive into the village.  There are tentative plans to build a house on the edge of the property nearest the village, but in the meantime they decided to leave their son to manage the land and they moved south to a property they owned 700 kilometres away where there was a house. 

Everything else was started from scratch.   She is a positive person, romantic yet practical at the same time.  Although this terrible event was a landmark in her life, if you ask her, Michèle – my Pollyanna friend - will tell you that no human or animal was hurt, and everything else is replaceable.  She'll just start again.

-oOo-

Photo Finish
- from Lonicera's non-digital archive

More pictures of La Honoria

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