Watch out turkey, here comes momma

I am getting a bit overexcited because Christmas is coming. I know, I know – atheists shouldn’t really, should they? I admit that I am a bit of a contradiction. Don’t like religion, love churches. Listen to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from Kings College, don’t believe a word of it but sob throughout. And I do not understand those grumps that hate the whole thing. How can you not like presents and overeating and sparkly things and an indoor tree? I would settle for that lot all year round.

Significant Other and I are going back to the UK this year. I have to; it has grand-daughters in it and although they would probably deny it, they need quality time with me. Also, I have to add to their stock of ridiculous little bits of plastic for mummy to crunch underfoot in the weeks after the holiday is over. Although the eldest has now reached the stage when she would much rather have a grubby fiver and a bottle of nail varnish, as she seems to have morphed into a swan whilst I have been living in Mallorca. How could she? I wanted to watch. Thank the Lord the little one is still disguised as a child and wants those poisonous clockwork hampsters for Christmas; don’t worry, the manufacturers have assured the hamster-buying public that Mr Squiggles is absolutely safe. Well, we’ll soon know, won’t we?

I don’t understand them, do you? They look like hamsters and run round the floor. Why not just get a real hamster? I suppose the toy ones do away with the droppings problem; I don’t know if they do little toy droppings, do they? And I can’t imagine that they would try to escape and hide in the couch, either.

The rest of the presents have either been bought over the internet and delivered straight to neutral territory (my friend’s house) in the UK ready for collection, wrapping and re-presenting to the correct recipients, or bought here using the constraints that they had to be small and light enough to go into a medium-sized suitcase. And I’ve sent all my cards. Impressed?

By the way, for those of you aware of the fact that I am a poor old pensioner in a shawl eating gruel, don’t worry. I haven’t been selling Significant Other’s body to fund this jaunt. Although it’s a thought; his is definitely more saleable than mine. No, my lovely friend has lent me her fabulous house in London for the duration of her stay with her mum in the frozen North. She’s a Scot, so she doesn’t really understand Christmas; it’s just something that gets in the way of Hogmanay. All I have to do is feed her cats. And just to complete the game of relay houses, I have found a nice man to live in my flat , and feed my cat whilst I am away. I have already started freezing home-made tomato soup away for him as a reward, and will buy him a poinsettia and a bottle of vodka to keep him warm. Sorted.

I have even got My Son the Actor, here looking cool by wearing shades in a tunnel, organising a fowl for us so we don’t have to panic down Streatham High Road on Christmas Eve looking for a festive dead animal. By the way, he’s singing here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdpjMF06a2A so if you like a bit of rock ‘n roll, this is my early Christmas present to you.

Neat bit of promotion there, eh?!

Life's too short...

It comes to something when the highlight of your week is cleaning out the pantry.

This week has been a bit challenging, what with Christmas bearing down upon me sneering, and the fact that the bank seems to have mislaid the money I transferred from the UK last Monday. After some scary phone calls “Well, it’s left here, madam”, I was expecting it to finally arrive this coming Monday, but Sod’s Law being what it is – a sod - it’s a Bank Holiday. I therefore have another day alternating between panic and poverty. Nice.

So due to lack of funds with which to do frivolous things like buy food, and also to take my mind off the impending doom, I have been doing those housewifely jobs that I normally avoid like the plague and make Significant Other do as part of my campaign to turn him into a New Man. The old one has some strange, unreconstructed ways about him; it’s not that he thinks he shouldn’t do housework, it’s just he thinks he will get better results by suggesting ways in which I could improve my techniques instead. This has resulted in me not ironing a single thing for him since 1997 as that was when it became apparent that he could do it so much better than me. He has learnt to watch his tongue a bit since then, but it’s a struggle for him, and sometimes you can see him choking with the effort.

I also have a nice, and possibly properly reconstructed man coming to live with my cat whilst I am away over the Christmas break, and I couldn’t have let him plough through the carpet of papery onion skins that is the result of storing vegetables in a wire rack. The pantry shelves are slatted too, and there had been a bit of an egg noodle disaster (I suppose it makes a change from the pea disaster which always happens in my freezer). The noodles had trickled six feet from the top shelf to the floor, and as I worked my way down, more and more of them cascaded through the slats like a miniature landslide. When I brushed up, I also found one fig roll, which is a bit distressing as I can’t remember the last time we had fig rolls. It’s a good job we live three floors up and mice don’t mountaineer.

I am not too unhappy about being a slut. In the 60s I read a wonderful article by the sainted Katharine Whitehorn in which she admitted to being a complete slattern herself. And half the female population of Britain wrote to her in relief and gratitude as they thought they were the only ones. Including the woman who had absent-mindedly mopped the table with the kitten.

But isn’t it odd that you always find things in your pantry you could swear you hadn’t bought. Brown rice, for instance. I know you are supposed to like brown rice as it’s so good for you, and goes down your veins cleaning out the cholesterol, but it’s disgusting. And there it was, sitting on the top shelf. I once heard a theory that any audio cassettes you leave in the glove compartment of your car will eventually morph into “The Best of Queen”. Perhaps it’s the same with forgotten food.

One day it will be brown rice. Be careful.

Common

This was a two bootsale weekend; gosh, what an amazing social whirl I exist in. At yesterday’s I picked up a hardback copy of Alan Bennett’s “Untold Stories”. Two euros. Bargain. I must admit to being a longtime fan of his wry and touching writing, (How about “Nothing excuses us from the obligation to divert our fellow creatures. We must not be boring”. My motto) and although I am only a little way into the book – it is very thick and too heavy to read in bed without a crane to turn the pages, so I am reading it in daylight rather than doing housework – I recommend you get hold of it. It was first published in 2005 so you might even still be able to find it in a bookshop. You might even be able to find a bookshop; I see Borders has hit the skids. That is somehow more distressing than Threshers and Woolies for me; bookshops are such lovely, warm places. A last resort of civilisation in the high street.

I think I may be so enchanted by his writings about his family and northern childhood, because of the similarities they have to mine. His mother, like mine, had a list of things which were “common”, and which I needn’t even bother thinking about, never mind asking for. Here is his description

“…..because if there was one consideration that determined my parents conduct and defined their position in the world, it was not to be (or to be thought) common.

Common, like camp (with which it shares a frontier) is not easy to define. At its simplest meaning vulgar or ostentatious, it is a more subtle and various disparagement than that, or was in our family anyway, taking in such widely disparate manifestations as tattoos, red paint, yellow gloves and two-tone cardigans, all entries in a catalogue of disapproval that ranged through fake leopardskin coats and dyed (blonde) hair to slacks, cocktail cabinets, the aforementioned ladies with alsatian dogs and boy with cherries, and umpteen other embellishments, domestic and personal.”
And my mum would have added wedge heeled shoes, pierced ears (it took me till I was 27 and had two children to get mine done. She didn’t like it) and one particular cake stand belonging to a neighbour which consisted of a flat chrome naked lady bearing a plastic dish aloft, something like the photo. I absolutely loved it. This may explain why I ended up collecting and sometimes dealing in showy Art Deco bits and pieces, and I relish kitsch. Forbidden fruit.

I sometimes wonder if this attitude to life led to our alienation from my father’s family after his death. From the day of his funeral, I never set eyes on any of the tribe again. I think my mum may have thought that the Scotland Road connection (you have to be a Scouser, but it would definitely have made the common list) was a bit beyond the pale, and the relations were quite possibly aware of how she felt about them.

Isn’t it sad to think of all the little lives lived unquestioningly within self-built walls of silly rules?

Copyright Diane Foden 2009

Hunting the mushroom

We just came back from a Mediaeval Fayre in Pollensa, one of the Brit-roosts on the island. Isn’t it strange that wherever two or more Brits are gathered together, a fete of some kind is the inevitable result? Mind you, I know this particular group of fund-raisers is a bit long in the tooth to run a marathon for charity, and they are definitely incapable of a sponsored silence. They are going to kill me for that.

The Mediaeval Fayre with a Y is a Christmas phenomenon. Not only does proper spelling get thrown to the winds, but one hint of holly and ivy and normally sensible people will raid the dressing up box. It’s amazing what you can do with a bit of imagination, a dusty old velvet curtain and a dressing gown cord. Nice women, who I usually see in businesslike middle-aged lady attire, were there today working the resulting off-the-shoulder buxom wench look. Well, they are more or less forced to do buxom wench, being, like me, a tad past the nubile wench stage.

To add to the Mediaeval-ness of the occasion there was a set of stocks, containing the vice-chairman, and a hog-roast containing a whole pig. We avoided the pig, which smelt wonderful but looked, well, like a real pig with a stick coming out of its various orifices, front and rear – I couldn’t eat something that looked so uncomfortable – and instead Significant Other joyfully threw wet sponges at the Vice-Chair. He was still beaming, hours later; very therapeutic.

And we bought a hardly used chip-fryer (mediaeval, of course) and a pair of second-hand but really cool linen trousers for next summer and some nice English Christmas cards, and came home though the mountains.

The mountain road between Pollensa and Soller is spectacular, but that does not explain the numbers of people you can find up there at this time of year. There are cars parked everywhere and little knots of solemn men wearing camoflage gear and engaging in deep discussion. Now, if you live here, you have definitely seen those little notices on every single piece of private land that say “coto privada de caza”. Loosely translated this means “Don’t think about setting one foot on my land because I could be out shooting everything that moves, and this means you, especially on Sundays”. Sundays are hunting days here; and on a recent Monday, we watched in mixed horror and amazement as our downstairs neighbour sat in his garden, nonchalantly plucking a plastic bagful of thrushes. That wasn’t quite as bad as the time they skinned a sheep down there, but I won’t go into that. Suffice it to say that Significant Other was utterly fascinated. I had to hide.

But in November, the mushroom is the prey du jour. And all those men are up there with dinky little baskets instead of shotguns. Dinky little baskets do not go with camoflage trousers, by the way, but the hunt is as intense. We know of a certain spot where not only is there the “coto privada de caza” notice, but also one that tells you the dates you may not look for mushrooms on the land. You’d probably get both barrels if you did because mushrooms are so valued here, especially the the Saffron Milk Cap or Esclatasang (translates as “bursts with blood” as it bleeds red sap. See, I don’t just tell stupid jokes. You can learn stuff, too).

There are two calendars here. One is driven by saints and banks, and the other by the seasons. I wish I had the ability to know the exact mushroom weekend, or the one where everyone takes to the hills for a barbie (they do it in winter here; who wants to spend a summer in temperatures in the 90s standing over a charcoal grill?), or know when and where to look for the wild asparagus before some other bugger has nabbed it all.

I’d be able to carry the dinky basket of pride then, and be a proper Mallorcan. As long as I could give the thrushes a miss.

Copyright Diane Foden 2009

Glossy

I do like a glossy magazine. In the good old days, when I had disposable income, they were one of my little luxuries. I could sigh over beautiful clothes that would never fit me, wonder if the £100 moisturiser would indeed give me a new head and rub the scratchy and, it has to be said, usually disgustingly stinky carboard perfume sample up my arm. Nowadays, having wrinkles, jowls and poverty – all the signs of age, in fact – I can no longer afford to buy magazines. So I am deeply grateful to M, whose flat I look after, and who also has a glossy magazine fetish which she has to deal with by letting me remove them by the ton when she runs out of room.

At present therefore, I am in hog heaven and truffling through last summer’s bounty of glossies. Guess what, faded denim is back. Heavens, going on what the average British tourist wears over here, it’s never been out. I digress, because amongst the ravishing shiny models and mascara ads I also found an article by Polly Toynbee, who in my opinion, should immediately be made a Dame. That’s the problem with being a woman socialist; you have to be nearly dead before the gatekeepers start realising what a great person you are. See Barbara Castle.

Anyway, the article, amongst other things, pointed out that there is still an average 17% difference between men’s and women’s salaries in the UK. I am trying to control my fury over this, given that equal pay legislation has been in force since 1970. Who has been monitoring this situation, for heavens sake? Did you know that the reason behind the various binmen’s strikes presently spreading across the UK is the fact that councils are finally being forced to bring in equal pay for equal work, and their initial response was to cut the binmen’s wages so they could afford to do it? And they wonder why strikes happen.

As you can probably tell, I am a long-standing feminist, having been in my prime in the 60s when it all suddenly kicked off. I didn’t burn my bra, but had I been a tad less well endowed I bloomin’ well would have done. Lord, it hit me like a ton of bricks what sort of system I was actually helping to prop up; I stopped that immediately, and I have been proselytising ever since.

But this week has been a good week for women. Firstly, the Red Arrows Air Display team have finally taken on their first female pilot, Flight Lieutenant Kirsty Moore. Women have been allowed to fly fast jets for the RAF for 20 years now, but it has taken this long for one to break through to the Red Arrows; and the reason given for the long delay? The special flight suits necessary for pilots at high speeds were not suitable for women. Bloody hell, I could have hand-knitted the Bayeaux Tapestry in 20 years. Single handedly. What you needed, boys, was a bit of motivation.

And the second award goes to Georgina Blackwell, who took on a conglomerate of Bellway Homes and their bully-boy barristers in the high court, and won. In a masterpiece of understatement she said “I’m a blonde, 23 year old beautician from Essex. I know it doesn’t look good on paper, but I think they underestimated me”. Bellway Homes had claimed access to their site through the Blackwell’s garden, and covered it in a roof of scaffolding. The fight to stop them was about to cost the Blackwells their home in legal fees until Georgina found something in the deeds (which had been missed by every male lawyer involved) and proved that Bellway had acted illegally. Result!! I wonder who does Bellway’s PR?

And a small “Yay” from me as I have just had an article published. In a glossy magazine; oh joy. You can read it at www.mallorcalifeandstyle.com on page 64.

Go, girls.

Copyright Di Foden 2009

All Souls

I love getting comments on my posts. Not that I’m needy or anything – well I am, actually - and I know I should just be writing for writing’s sake. Apparently. But I am ridiculously pleased if something I’ve written strikes a chord with a stranger, and they take the trouble to tell me. In my world, writing is for being read. And then I’d like a nice pat on the head, please.

The reason I’m telling you this is because I have just had a very unexpected comment on an old post of mine about cemetaries. (See label Santa Maria del Cami. Or Death) It came from a cemetary lover, who would have liked some more photographs. See, I’m not the only person in the world who likes a good graveyard. It’s my dad’s fault; his favourite pastime when we were on our annual week in the horizontal rain of the Isle of Man – we went to the Isle of Man every year, because that’s what Liverpudlians did in the Fifties – was to take me for a wander round some of the really ancient churchyards over there. Other kids got to go to the penny arcade. I got mossy tombstones. Educational and cheap at the same time, I suppose. But it did ignite a spark of fascination in me for the engraved stories of ordinary dead people.

So, following my rather morose mood of last week (I’m trying to be cheerful, I really am), Significant Other and I decided to take a walk up to our cemetary, and take some shots for Cemetary Lover. It is only about a mile, door to door. This is a good distance for a walk because having walked the two miles there and back, you feel you have done enough to stop at the bar on the way home and have a drink. And now is the best time of year to go and see it because it was All Souls last weekend. Soller is a Trick or Treat-free zone, you will be glad to hear, so the celebrations here centre round the graves of your ancestors and everyone, and I mean everyone in town goes up to the cemetary with enormous armsful of flowers. The results are just stunning and even a week later, the lily-scented air was still full of the hum of opportunist bees looking for a late feed. I am not fond of chrysanthemums, the flower of choice at this time of year, probably because of that earthy, dying vegetation smell, but they do come into their own sitting on a gravestone.

There are some great grave markers too. We particularly admire this mucky angel who appears to be wearing a black fleece over her heavenly robes. And doing that pulling her sleeves over her hands thing.

Mallorcan graves are so upfront. Most of them have a photo of the occupant in pride of place; I can’t help wondering if the people inside suddenly decided one day “Hmm, I really ought to get myself down to Photos Brazil and have the tombstone photo done.” And did they say to the lady in said shop “It’s for the grave, dear. Make it a nice one”? I must say, they do all look as if they are in their Sunday best, with pomaded hair for the old boys, and lace collars and stern expressions for the grannies.

And not one of them is saying “Cheese”.

Copyright Diane Foden 2009

Winter draws on

Despite the fact that we are having the loveliest Indian Summer here, I am getting that slightly melancholic Autumn feeling. You know, the days keep drawing in, the clock’s gone back, I’ve swapped the summer fripperies for darker, warmer clothes. Mind you, it has been so balmy, I’ve had to retrieve a few bits. It’s the warm-weather version of “ne’er cast a clout till May is out”. I knew I shouldn’t have done early clout-casting; I’ve now got my mother in my head, nodding sagely and saying “I told you so” in tones of triumph.

We have also been preparing the flat for the cooler weather; well, we got the rug out. It is a new flokati and whilst it looks fabulous and far too Hollywood for us two, it is still at the moulting stage. The fluff is everywhere. I’m quite surprised to find that there is any pile left on the blooming thing and it’s only been down for a week. The moult is piling up against the walls like indoor snowdrifts. It’s quite pretty, but I really should give the brush its annual outing. Can you use Autumn melancholia as an excuse for not doing housework? Oh, I think so.

The poor old cat treats the rug with suspicion as she can’t walk across it properly. Her claws stick to it, you see, and she has to shake the leg at each corner before she makes the next halting step. Hours of innocent entertainment for us two, of course. We want to see if she actually will get them all stuck at once and fall over in an undignified fashion.

And Significant Other’s job has finished for the season, so we are feeling a bit nostalgic about his salary – we loved his salary - and have gone into siege mode. His way of dealing with the siege is to do a budget. I think the rationale behind this is “Right, I’ve got it down on paper, therefore it’s sorted. Make it work, Di.” He is a natural born theorist.

My way is to start saving loose change in a jar, then checking out vegetarian recipes and wondering if I could make a dress out of curtains, a la Sound of Music. I am getting quite good at remodelling my charity shop finds, actually. I just turned a wrapover skirt into a side fastening one because I am of the opinion that wrapover skirts are the work of the Devil. Or designed by a man. I never wore one that I didn’t have to clutch at the crotch (it's the only way I'm ever going to resemble Botticelli’s Venus) in an attempt to preserve my modesty. They are not made for striders like me. I won’t dwell on the sitting down aspect. Nasty. However, I am a bit dischuffed to see how little material there was left from the skirt after the alterations. The original owner would have fitted into the new, me-sized version twice. Dear God, I will have to go on a diet. I am a poverty-stricken fatso.

So that’s not done much for my melancholia. Think I’ll go and eat worms.

Are they fattening?