Another short story

Self portrait, 1970

This is from the same treasure trove of school reports and toddler artwork as the previous story, but was written a few years earlier, when I was 6 or 7. Again I am copying verbatim - spelling and punctuation left entirely unchanged, although I have substituted my blog name for my real name.

If a magician gave me one wish I would say "I will save it untill I went to have a holiday and I would try to be famous and I would ask for a pair of wings that will never never break and I would fly over the town and everybody would look up at me and say "look who is that up in the clouds. and I would shout It is me [Lola Blogger] with wings to fly with. Oh it is lovely up here. "I wish we were up there." the people will say.

I suppose I'm still trying to be famous, although in my world 'famous' means appearing on Radio 4 rather than being recognised in the street. And, of course, I still want to be able to fly.

Short story

Still life, 1971

While I was being Nurse Rosenberg I took all sorts of things from home to occupy myself, and one of these was a plastic bag full of my history - music exam certificates, school reports, some of my childhood art, a letter I wrote to my American cousins. A treasure trove.

Here is something I wrote for an English lesson when I was 12, in 1976 or 77. I have copied it verbatim without changing so much as a comma.

My Visit to the Past

It is now 1960. The weather is very gloomy and everyone around me is running. There is a shrill noise.

Everyone had gone by. A solitary woman was left, coming out of a shop door.

"That was better than usual," she remarked.

"What happened?" I asked.

"You got caught in the rush hour," she said. "You ought to know by now to head for the nearest doorway."

"Oh."

I carried on my way. The streets were now deserted, apart from a few early morning shoppers. I looked into a shop. It was a stationers. I wondered if the goods would tell me what time of year it was. Nothing. Not a firework. No Christmas cards. No Valentine cards. Not an Easter bunny in sight. This wasn't getting me very far.

A lady was standing admiring some notepaper. I asked her for the date. June 6th.

I started down a sideroad. Everything around me seemed much quieter. There were no babies crying out of 3rd floor flat windows. Then I realised what was really nagging me. The difference in our clothes. They were wearing two piece garments, at least, the men were. The women were sometimes in one piece dresses or dresses in two pieces. I wondered how they managed to get them on. Now, I was wearing the normal amount of jewelry, with all my rings, and a 5-piece suit, and it looked very advanced beside the primitive clothing of these people.

I heard another shrill whistle. Expecting another mad rush of people, I pressed back into a doorway, but I could only see one man coming towards me, dressed all in blue, with a tall hat, and brandishing what appeared to be a large metal or wooden stick. In his mouth was a little silver thing that was making the noise. He looked extremely fierce, and I just turned and ran, right back to my machine. Seconds later, I was safe again, back in my own time.

It's very strange to read your own composition more than 40 years later, but I find this so interesting. The story isn't much in itself, but the first four paragraphs hook the reader, make you want to know what's next. The rhythm of the writing - sentences, phrases, paragraphs, even the direct speech - I thought it was really cool that it was written by my 12 year old self.

Tradesmen, employment and growing old

Peckover House, August 2014 (photo credit: Lola II)

Tradesmen update: I have finally got hold of the electrician and we have agreed a date for the fuse box to be replaced, which will mean a day and a half without power. I have booked the day off work, and had some pleasant thoughts about doing some fun things like perhaps going off for a quick ski in the Snowdome to keep my ski legs trim - my ski holiday is now booked for February. Then I realised that this would be the perfect time to get the car serviced as I need it to get to work every other day. The car is up for a long service medal, as it has now completed more than 200,000 miles.

Employment update: Mr A has scored a full time permanent job and has now been employed for a week; so far he is enjoying it. Meanwhile, I have delivered half of my first DESMOND course for people newly diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, and the first day of my third course for people with Type 1 Diabetes. DESMOND is a national programme with quality assessment and a requirement to adopt a particular delivery style which includes much questioning of participants and withholding of answers unless they really can't work it out for themselves. The Type 1 course is not quality assessed or peer reviewed, which means that I am only really getting into my stride third time round.

Update on growing old: I have new glasses! and new (trial) contact lenses! I love the glasses, they are varifocals and it has taken me no time at all to get used to them. The contact lenses, on the other hand, are proving more challenging. What the optician suggested was to have two different prescriptions, so my dominant eye would have the lens set up for distance and the lens in my other eye would be for near sight and reading. They provided me with five pairs of two sorts of lenses so I could try them out for comfort. I've had a go at one type for a week, and I don't like it at all - instead of having clear sight for distance and near viewing my eyes seem to confuse the focus and I can't see clearly at any distance. So that's not such a success - but I'll try the other brand in case the problem is with the lenses rather than the prescription.

More growing old news - happy birthday mum! She and dad kindly hosted a very small celebration attended by Lola II, Mr M, myself and another friend during which we watched a film that was made for my school's 60th birthday in 1979. See the odd children! and their antiquated school uniform! Laugh at the teachers' 70s cars, outfits and hairstyles! The undisputed highlight was the orchestra, featuring your very own Lola I and Sister D, with me wearing the biggest specciest specs you can imagine. It was the 70s! Big specs were the fashion item! I still have the massive specs in a drawer, and they are so heavy that I'm surprised my teenage ears weren't pulled completely off.

Brief update on not growing old - badminton club no. 2 have suffered an early retirement by one of their veteran ladies, and asked me very nicely if I could play in a match, so I said yes. Then I found out it was for their 1st mixed team in Division 1 of the league. It wasn't as bad as I expected; I was only made to look like an amateur by their first pair and we managed to scrape wins in the other two sets, mostly because my partner ran around like a maniac picking up everything while I fannied about near the net doing very little. Good fun.

In other news, I combined the trip to London with a bit of time with Lola II and Mr M. They took me to Southall and fed me a delicious authentic Punjabi meal, and I was supposed to help with some household jobs, but I don't remember contributing very much at all. I have a load of jobs for them to help with when they pay a return visit, and I wonder if they will manage to get away with doing as little as I did?