Parabens and tocopherol

I have now heard from my future manager that full time hours are available, at least for a temporary period, although the contract that arrived for me to sign shows it's a permanent job but only 2 days a week. I have an appointment with Occupational Health to go through my vaccination history, and I even have a provisional start date, which I'm looking forward to with some trepidation. Other than short periods of 12 weeks it's been nearly 5 years since I had to get up and go to work every day, and more than 6 months since I actually did anything relating to Dietetics other than being interviewed, so I'm trying to prepare for the shock to the system.

I've also been speaking to the Occupational Health department about my skin sensitivity. I've had eczema on my hands since I was a child, and tried a number of ways to deal with it, including skin prick allergy testing, where the only thing I reacted to was the 'hypo-allergenic' sticking plaster they used to tape the samples down. Mostly, I wore cotton gloves to help stop the skin drying out, cracking and bleeding, and I remember wearing pale pink gloves during my O levels, where there were obviously concentrated periods of handwriting, so my writing hand would get cramp because I had to grip the pen harder than usual.

I also remember the intolerable itching, and to avoid scratching the skin away I would run water from the hot tap over my hands until the pain of the heat obliterated the terrible itching. There were periods when the eczema retreated, although it never really disappeared completely, and there was always a background itch, which I must have learned to ignore. Habits we adopted at home included mum generously peeling oranges for me, because the acidic juice would sting the raw patches on my hands. I was reminded of that last weekend, when I peeled an orange for her! And I never washed the dishes without rubber gloves, and always washed my hands as little as humanly possible during the course of a day.

Things started to change because of a sunny holiday in around 1995. It was something to do with either the suntan cream I used, or some preparation I applied to sunburn, but whatever it was triggered the thought that it was the lotions that were causing the skin rash, not the heat. And I stopped using them, and the rash slowly improved, and I wrote down all the ingredients of the lotions. I don't even remember how I came to decide which ingredient to avoid - perhaps it happened again and I compared ingredients - but that was when I started to watch out for the paraben family of chemicals.

That seemed to be quite successful, until I reacted to an antiperspirant that didn't contain parabens, and shortly afterwards to a massage oil that was also paraben-free. Both of those contained tocopherol, otherwise known as vitamin E, and widely held to be 'good for your skin' and therefore added to many beauty products. I don't regularly use anything that might be classed as a product relating to beauty, but it occasionally pops up in other things - luckily (at least in the UK) all the ingredients of any preparation that comes into contact with skin are listed, except laundry powders and liquids.

So I now avoid any contact with parabens and tocopherols, which are often found in products like soap, shampoo, bubble bath, lip, face, hand, foot and creams for any other body parts, very nearly all suntan protection except ludicrously expensive stuff for babies, anti-perspirant and anything else you'd routinely buy from Boots to apply to the outside of your body. I stick to the same washing powder that has been OK so far, and still wear rubber gloves for washing up when I'm at home. And I've been almost completely eczema- and itch-free for about ten years, although I still have a large tub of emulsifying ointment in case of the occasional accident, and I will be forever thankful for product labelling laws.

The folks in the Occupational Health department are going off to check the ingredients in the hospital soap. "Of course, if you find that it contains parabens or tocopherol I can always use my own soap," I said. But no, that would not be possible. Apparently, it is forbidden. If that's the case then I hope that we could agree on some reasonable compromise, because I can't believe that my employment as a dietitian could be derailed before it's even begun just because I'm allergic to the soap they use in that particular hospital.

Choosing a university

For most of last Sunday I was battling with the chapter of the book I've been commissioned to write, aimed at potential students of Dietetics, and all about how to decide which university to choose. It has made me think about what exactly makes a university attractive to students, and also try very hard to remember what it was like to be aged 18, but not in the selfish and irresponsible way that I behaved when I was 18.

That's been one of the main differences I've noticed in the young students who studied with me this time round - they seemed to be mature for their age and have a sense of purpose, they knew their own minds, and were generally doing a Dietetics degree because they thought that being a Dietitian was something that would suit them. I was an Engineering student at the same age, and I was studying that subject because I was good at physics and maths, the adults advising me thought it would suit me, there was a very favourable male:female ratio, and there wasn't anything else that I particularly wanted to do.

I'm very glad that I had that experience and gained a degree and many lifelong friends, but it wasn't the right subject for me. But I couldn't possibly have done a Dietetics degree at that age - I wouldn't have conformed to the necessary professional standards of responsible behaviour, and I had no intention of settling down into a career at that point in my life.

The other factor influencing my writing this chapter is my experience since graduating, and the difficulty I had in getting a job. It is always possible that my age is a factor in interviews, although of course recruiters are not supposed to be influenced by such things, but actually I think it is more about how I answer the questions. Whatever the reason, it is clear that a solid past career and getting a First class Dietetics degree has not smoothed my way into my first job, although maybe it will lead to wider opportunities later on.

All degrees in Dietetics lead to registration and eligibility for a job as a Dietitian, whether from the 'best' or the 'worst' university, so in some ways the academic reputation of the university is irrelevant. But I can't bring myself to write that - surely there must be some advantage in doing four years at a university that sets high entry requirements, rather than a shorter (and therefore cheaper) course or one at another place where you don't need the best A levels to get in? I have to say that at this point of my Dietetic career, I really don't see what that advantage is, unless you are either a swotty swot like me (as Lola II so accurately describes me), or what you really want to do is research. In which case, you might as well do a different course, like Nutrition or Food Science, where communication skills and professional standards aren't such a high priority.

Thoughts on interviews

Forgive me, it is many days since I last wrote my insignificant thoughts. There has been a weekend, I have had a slight cold, I have planted daffodil bulbs, and we are having trouble with the TV.

The aerial cable seems to be dodgy, and the second-hand Freeview box has turned out to be rather temperamental - it takes several seconds to acknowledge any command it is sent, if it acknowledges it at all. If we want to watch a program (and there have been just a couple) then we need to start trying to change channel about 5 minutes before it is due to begin. I think Mr A would do something about this if he were not revising full time, but I don't care enough about broadcast TV to get involved. I'm happy with our DVDs, which are terrific - we finished the last series of The Wire, which was incredibly good, and are in the midst of the BBC version of I Claudius from the 1970's, which isn't bad, and surprised us with a young Patrick Stewart (with hair), and how much better they can do makeup nowadays - the old Claudius looks like he's wearing a Halloween mask.

I have been working on my teaching session, and yesterday I discussed it with the main tutor of the course I will be contributing to - she likes it a lot, and suggested how we might do the role play, as she has plenty of experience in that area and I have none. I also spent an hour with two experienced dietitians, talking about how I might improve my job applications and interview technique.

I am getting myself a bit worked up about interviews. Recruiting basic grade dietitians through a 30-minute interview seems to me to be a way of selecting the people who are good at doing interviews. Acting skills are rewarded almost as much as depth of knowledge, and I am not and have never been able to act. I can think of many people who would be a nightmare to work with, but whose ability to think on their feet and come up with a confident answer is outstanding.

This view may be coloured by the horrendous last interview I had before leaving my previous job, which took the form of an 'Assessment Centre' - a whole day of different types of activity designed to test different aspects of personality. The only thing that it didn't seem to test was a sound knowledge of the area of work involved, which was what I knew best, having done the job for some time. The successful candidate was the internal 'ringfenced' candidate who had been made redundant from another area, and she did a pretty bad job for as long as it took her to find a way to get out. One of the candidates had had enough by lunchtime and didn't stay for the afternoon. I met another of the candidates a few weeks later, and he told me that not only would he not have accepted the job if it had been offered to him, but he wouldn't even consider applying for any others in that organisation based on what he had gone through.

I have been on the other side of the table, as a recruiter too, and I'm not much good at that either. It seems to me that with a huge pool of unemployed graduate dietitians, all of whom will meet the essential requirements of a basic NHS post, it would save an enormous amount of time and effort if applicants just submitted their names and referees and one applicant was picked at random from all those meeting the essential criteria, given the job on a 6-month temporary basis, and then kept on if they turn out OK. We wouldn't have to spend ages on writing applications and undergoing stressful interviews, recruiters wouldn't have to spend ages reading applications and interviewing people, and I bet that 90% of appointments would turn out OK.

Anyway, the outcomes of my discussion about applications and interviews was mixed. They thought that I could be more succinct in my application, but suggested that I be more specific about why I want that particular job, even though both I and the recruiter are well aware that I don't really care what job I get at this stage. They thought that I was perfectly presentable, but perhaps should dress a bit smarter, to the extent of wearing low heels and a suit, even though this was understood by both sides to be an interview thing and any dietitian wearing heels or a suit in the real job would be classed as probably slightly mad, and definitely overdressed.

In terms of 'model' answers to questions, which seems to be the essence of interview success, I struggle. Of course I know a lot of stuff, but it might actually be easier if I knew a bit less, because I have trouble picking out the stuff that the interviewer actually wants to hear. Of all the things you might tell a person who has been newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, what are the two most important points? My first reaction is always: 'It depends'. Tell them to cut down on sugary drinks - what if they don't drink any? But my reservations apply to the real world, not to interviews. In interviews, you have to say what they want to hear, in black and white, and not enter the grey and murky world of 'it depends'.

So I have all the answers in my head, and my main problem is that faced with a question, I have trouble retrieving the answer and delivering it as required. Of course, all this deliberation is hypothetical until I actually get an interview - there have been no suitable jobs advertised since the run of five last week, and although four of those five vacancies are now closed to applications, I have heard nothing yet.

Out On The Tiles

My guest bloggers are still thinking about it, so it's back to me again. I first posted this meme about 18 months ago, so in between watching Wimbledon, doing my tax return, shortening trousers and applying for jobs, I thought I'd do it again.

Rules:

1. Put your MP3 player on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. You must write the name of the song no matter what. No cheating!

I've added a fourth rule - I'm writing down my thoughts about the song while it plays. And (not that it matters to you) my ipod is set so that classical music and spoken word don't come up on shuffle.

IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY?” YOU SAY:
"Mary"
A relatively recent acquisition (i.e. in the last 10 years), from the Scissor Sisters first album, which Lola II recommended to me after she was introduced to it by some of MY friends. Lola II has a habit of stealing my friends, but that's OK because they like me more because of having provided access to Lola II, who is an asset to any informal gathering. Now she's started stealing Mr A's friends, who ask "When is Lola II coming to see us?" whenever they see me and Mr A.

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
"It's Only Us"
This makes no sense, unless I interpret it in some sort of existential way - our personalities are just what we are. Which is close to what I believe, I suppose. It's a nice song though, by good old Robbie Williams.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
"One Road More"
This is from a pretty obscure live CD by Butch Hancock and Jimmy Dale Gilmore, who I would definitely have heard first at Cambridge Folk Festival in the 90's. It's very folky and American, it even features harmonica. In terms of liking One Road More in a guy, perhaps that's the motor sport and motorbikes? So far, this meme is providing neither insight nor laughs.

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
"I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow (Instrumental)"
This is more like it, apart from me not being a man or feeling sorrowful. From the movie 'O Brother, Where Art Thou' which I can thoroughly recommend, and not just because George Clooney's in it. He was the actor who sings in the movie, but the voice was provided by a guy named John Hartford. I heard a documentary where Hartford's wife was asked how she felt about George miming to her husband's voice. She said something to the effect of "John's voice coming out of George Clooney? Sounds like the perfect combination!"

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
"One"
Well, I suppose I got my First, although I don't like to think that's my only purpose in life. The song is from the soundtrack of the movie 'Magnolia' sung by Aimee Mann. I remember watching the film - it was while I was living as a lodger in Coventry in 2000, having moved down from Manchester but before settling in Leamington. The showing started at a normal sort of evening time, but I hadn't realised it was over three hours long (plus ads/trailers), so by the time it ended, the locale was deserted and the last bus had gone. The film is good but weird, Tom Cruise plays an uncharacteristically nasty character and I'd like to see it again, but the length of it puts me off.

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
"Love Island"
Is a Love Island good? Or should it be that I love Islands, or the concept of Island? It's obviously not my motto, but this is a track by the eminent Fatboy Slim, whom I mentioned in the first meme post as being pimped by the Guardian newspaper. I can't say that I listen to him much these days, but he would definitely suit a mood that required nodding of heads in time to the music.

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
"A Fool For Your Stockings"
This meme seems to be contrarily turning out the opposite of what is asked. Stockings? Nice to hear some ZZ Top though, who came to my attention during university the first time round ('The Rock Years'). I was hanging around with a guy who played cello in the uni orchestra and bass guitar in a band - I don't remember ever going to see him play the cello. The band used to play a couple of ZZ Top numbers, and some Elvis Costello (but I didn't subsequently buy any of his albums).

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS?
"Right On Sister"
A different way to express my feelings, but yes, I suppose so. Tom Robinson in his heyday, on the same album as 'Glad to be Gay'. I was in my gap year working as a sponsored student at Ford Motor Company, and I heard a rumour that the Big Boss (Sam Toy) had asked for the TRB song 'Grey Cortina' to be supplied to him. As the manufacturer of that car, it was said, he needed to be able to comment on the content of the song.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
"Without You"
No, I don't think about this very much. The meme is certainly not coming up with interesting responses, but at least this is a lovely track from the Dixie Chicks, whose claim to fame was that they slagged off George Bush just before the Iraq invasion, and lost half their US audience as well as spending the next few years as anti-war pariahs.

WHAT IS 2+2?
"We Go Together"
OK, getting better, 2 plus 2 do go together, kind of. A jolly number from the soundtrack of the film 'Grease'. Not much more to say about that one.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
"Surrender"
I'm thinking of giving up this meme. Surrender? It makes no sense. The song is sung by the late great Elvis Presley, whose Greatest Hits album I bought on the strength of wanting to own one particular song very badly ('A Little Less Conversation') and then finding that I quite liked many of the other songs on the album as well. And everyone ought to have a little bit of Elvis in their lives.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
"Tonight I Think I'm Gonna Go Downtown"
Forget the meme, I'll just write about the random songs. The nature of randomness is exhibited by this second song from this obscure live album by obscure folkies Butch Hancock and Jimmy Dale Gilmore. Quite nice, but nothing more to say about it, except that this song's a bit more laid back than the other one, and there's no harmonica.

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
"La Habanera"
A great foot-tapping swinging dancey track from the great Swiss band Yello, introduced to me in the late 80's by Sas, the eclectic music connoisseur turned Buddhist. Where are they now, I wonder? [Not Sas, Yello, and I've just looked them up, and they've never gone away. I might go back and investigate their more recent work.]

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
"Over The Hills And Far Away"
I really don't want to be over the hills and far away when I grow up. Many people want to retire to distant locations with warmer weather and golf, but I would be happy in a windswept tundra as long as I had food, water and books. Led Zeppelin, from 'Houses of the Holy' which is one of my favourite LZ albums, even though it's not one of the 'classics'. This has prompted me to discover that I don't own Led Zep IV on CD. How strange, I thought I did.

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
"Five Pretty Faces"
Mr A only has one face that I'm aware of, and it's not THAT pretty, although he tidied it up a lot yesterday after some neglect due to sitting at his desk for days without respite. This track is composed and performed by someone I used to work with in my previous job, who turned out to be a bit of a home musician on the side. He gave me a copy of the CD he'd produced, and it's really good. A quick Internet search suggests that his music hasn't gone mainstream, unless he's using a different name.

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
"Ga Be'atsmecha"
This time the first Israeli track is what my parents think of me, and unfortunately the translation is 'Touch Yourself'. Right at the end of my year-long stay in 1987-8 I heard a track on Israeli radio, and managed to remember the artist and album, with the intention of looking out for it. I stayed with relatives on my way home, and mentioned that I'd like to buy some music to take with me, and my aunt suggested a different artist and album, and I followed her advice. I somehow didn't forget this one, and when the Internet developed to the point where I could buy Israeli music without actually going there, I bought it: 'Bribe', by Shem Tov Levi. Not what the young people are listening to today, but I like it.

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
"Cyprus Avenue"
Since the last time I did this meme, I have written about weddings. Also when doing the meme first time round, I was reminded of a very unpleasant character tied up with my musical history, and this track reprises that association - it's from Van Morrison's seminal album 'Astral Weeks', which I don't even like. I came to buy it through being naive and mildly exploited by said character. Meh. It's also totally unsuitable for wedding dancing, except in a swaying hippy eyes-closed style. I will now delete it from my ipod. There.

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
"Paranoid Eyes"
Pink Floyd at their most political, singing about the Falklands era. Mildly appropriate for a funeral, I suppose, but definitely not among my first choices. A present from a friend at university, and my memory is that he gave it to me for my birthday because I kept going on about it but was too stingy to splash out any money of my own.

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
"Don't Stop"
A jolly tune from Fleetwood Mac, and giving no clue as to my actual hobby or interest, other than the fact that currently I don't intend to stop. This is another of the rare tracks that I've stolen from the library, on a 'Rock Compilation' style CD.

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
"The Beach"
My secret beach, oh yes. Unlikely. Anyway, this is sung by Mary Coughlan, and I can't remember how I came to listen to her music, but it was probably Cambridge Folk Festival again. A interesting coincidence: a friend from school is now married to a chap who wrote and produced some of Mary Coughlan's songs on subsequent albums, and was very surprised to find out that I had heard of her.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
"Feelin' the Same Way"
The right way that one should think of one's friends. This is Norah Jones, whom I listen to for calmness and relaxation. No particular lifetime associations; great voice.

WHAT SHOULD YOU POST THIS AS?
"Out On The Tiles"
Great title for the post, and great song to end with - Led Zeppelin again, from the third album.

Overall, the purpose of the meme - to throw up unusual, interesting and amusing answers to the set of questions - has spectacularly failed. But I get to reminisce and bore you with my tales from the past, and you get another blog post. I win.

Particle physics, units, and old age drinkers

I have asked a number of my regular readers/commenters if they'd like to write something. Actually, it was more like, "Please, could you write a blog post? I've got nothing to say and I don't want to lose all my readers."

Here is the first contribution, from old friend and intermittent blog commenter 'CERNoise', who, as the name suggests, works at CERN, the site of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We went to university (the first time) together, where she distinguished herself by being extremely good at physics, and playing the violin, while I distinguished myself by being extremely bad at engineering, and learning to ride a unicycle.

We particle physicists have invented some strange units over the years, to describe the very small things we study. My favourite unit actually mixes up the very small and the very big. It is the megaparsec-picobarn, and it describes the volume of space that is typically swept out by a cosmic ray particle charging about the universe at close to the speed of light. A megaparsec is about the right size to measure the distances between galaxies, and a picobarn is the cross-sectional area that says how likely the cosmic ray is to interact if it happens to meet another cosmic ray going in the other direction.

Here's a blog entry about barns and LHC records by my friend Jon.

[Ed: I love the ways that scientists demonstrate that they have a sense of humour. Jon's blog post reports that a barn is a unit of area. It was supposed to be something big and easy to hit (as in 'barn door')]

Multiplying a very long distance by a really tiny area, it turns out that a megaparsec-picobarn is still a rather small volume. If I managed to look up the conversion factors properly, it comes out as:

0.000 000 000 003 cubic centimetres.

The UK press is always reporting on warnings to limit the number of units we drink, and they are talking about a unit of volume too, in this case ten cubic centimetres of alcohol, but then mixed up in a small glass of wine, or a larger glass of beer, or maybe even part of an exotic cocktail.

I was at a workshop in Germany in January, and I was trying to work out how many units (of alcohol) were in each bottle of the very nice local beer we were knocking back. None of the other physicists from around the world seemed to come from countries with such well publicised guidelines. They would have been even more shocked to read the latest recommendations that by the time we hit 65 we're shouldn't drink more than 1.5 units a day.

Another ten thousand billion megaparsec-picobarns of your best ale please landlord!

Guide Dogs

On Saturday, as we walked towards the Pump Room Gardens along the Riverside Walk, Mr A said to me, "I do hope you get a job that means we don't have to move house."

Yes, I know I wasn't going to write about 'what I did at the weekend', but I'm back on one of my favourite topics: how much we like living here. On Saturday, alongside the monthly Farmers' Market, an event was held in the Pump Room Gardens featuring Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and various other worthy and mostly dog-related organisations.

Although I worked for RNIB for 14 years, I didn't have a lot of contact with GDBA. I've met plenty of guide dog owners, but their dogs didn't tend to feature in my work, either in the workplace or in the social context. When given the choice of human or dog as guide, the human wins every time, so I didn't even get to observe anyone working their dog. In mass gatherings such as conferences, the most interesting times were when a scrap broke out among the dogs, or at one memorable hotel-based event when a corridor became impassable because of a smell that had to be traced to a dog, because no human could have produced it.

In my one-to-one assessment work, I went to see a client on a day when his dog had suddenly been taken ill in some way, and while I was there the call came from the vet to say that the dog couldn't be saved. Never having had pets of my own, I had no emotional sense whatever about what this meant, but soon realised with a sense of shame that I needed to come back another time to finish the assessment.

Another assessment visit that sticks in my mind was to see a client in a public sector role, who told me about a recent time when his colleagues thought it was a great joke to take his guide dog and hide it when he was out of the room. The dog was traumatised, the man didn't know what to do with himself, and none of the managers took it seriously. It was the worst case of workplace bullying I have ever seen, but he didn't want to make a complaint. He was looking for work elsewhere, and wanted to leave without any trouble.

Then there was the time when a dog-using colleague sent an email round asking if anyone had a small ornament in the shape of a deer that he could have? When he had been on a visit to a client in their home, his dog had eaten an deer ornament belonging to the client, and he wanted to offer a replacement as compensation. As I remember it, the dog had to be retired after it jumped out of a window, but that might not be entirely true.

Another dog-using colleague had a great store of dog-related jokes, including the one about the blind parachutist. He was able to tell when the ground was approaching because the dog's lead went slack.


Anyway, back to the Pump Room Gardens. I only found out about the event because of my friend's guide dog training taking place in Leamington this week, although there were plenty of onlookers so there must have been some sort of publicity somewhere. Loads of dogs: working dogs, training dogs, puppies, pets, and big boards showing how they are bred, cared for and trained. Tombola, raffles, bric-a-brac being sold in aid of GDBA, other Assistance Dogs, and the usual suspects who turn up when there's an opportunity for a stall: crepes, face-painting, cream teas and Napton Water Buffalo ice cream and burgers.

There was a display arena, where I happened to catch a demonstration of how dogs are trained and their capacity for guiding their owners. There was an obstacle course, and particular demonstrations showing how dogs signalled various hazards and what they and the owner did about them. There was a separate demonstration that included a bus stop, zebra crossing and road works. It's not surprising that GDBA raises so much money: the dogs are amazing, to the extent that it can bring a lump to your throat.

Word-botcher

Mr A is turning into a bit of a twitcher. It was the robins that started it, when we noticed that a robin was probably building a nest in the garage. Then he found the nest, and took a series of pictures of the developing chicks. He's now put up a bird table!

The history of the bird table goes back to at least 1990, when I was travelling around Australia and was smitten by the variety and colour of the birds there. I thought I might carry on birdwatching when I came home, but I found that the vast array of sizes, shapes and colours of Australian birds was not matched in the UK, where birds are, almost without exception. small and brown. The books said they often had to be distinguished by their call, or the shape of the eye, or some other impossible aspect of mating behaviour.

I joined RSPB anyway, and they gave me a self-assembly bird table as a free gift. It has remained unassembled in its cardboard box for more than 20 years, travelling with me to each place I have lived, and has been sitting here in the kitchen for about 10 years. Until this week, when Mr A put it together.

He's also been looking up useful facts about robins on the Internet, finding out that they fledge within 2 weeks and the pair may have another clutch of eggs in the same season, and they will eat mealworms, which are quite expensive to buy. The bird table has not been an immediate success with the birds, probably because there's quite a lot of other food around at this time of year, but Mr A has been cutting up tiny pieces of salami and putting them out anyway.

The title of this post comes from an anecdote told by the great Humphrey Lyttleton, who was once interviewed on a local radio station. At one point, the interviewer said "You're a bit of an orthinologist, aren't you?" Humph described how he was on the motorway on the way home before he thought of the perfect answer: "Not so much an orthinologist, more a word-botcher."

Looking back

The last year has been pretty good, I think - at least, casting my mind back has not made me wince as it might have in previous years. We started with a very fine New Year's Eve party at the Cricketers - the last, as it turned out, with Smurf in charge.

Then there was snow, I had a couple of exams, then a weekend break on Dartmoor and then a return to the throes of term time study. Lola II moved house and celebrated her birthday and started going out with Mr M (not necessarily in that order); what a year she has had!. Looking at my diary for January to March, there seems to be little there other than travelling to university and Monday night badminton, before respite comes in April with the Easter break, but ongoing coursework no doubt.

Five exams turned up in May, after which Mr A and I managed a lovely holiday in Bruges. Then it was 12 weeks of clinical placement, which was probably the most intense period of self-examination, skills development and technical progress I have ever experienced. It had its ups and downs, but went very well on the whole - the manager of the department wrote some very encouraging feedback on the review form.

Our bathroom was transformed, but we end the year as we ended 2009 - with a great hole in a ceiling (kitchen rather than living room this time). It's water that does all the damage in this country, but at least we don't have cockroaches, bedbugs, ants or termites. The exterior of the house was also fully restored, and I'm still loving the look of it every time I come home.

Various other entertainments took place over the summer - the beer and film festival, the food and drink festival, a camping trip or two, and then it was back to school for the final year. Mr A took his first exam since leaving uni the first time round, and did rather well (but he's as bad as me, not satisfied unless he's done his best). Unlike previous years, the trusty car had presented no problems at all until someone decided to nudge into it gently, propelling me into a vortex of insurance claim and hire car heaven.

October and November were quite social months: we went to Devon, Bristol, Towcester and London to see various friends and relatives, and then I went to Coventry to see some people with coeliac disease. In December, we even invited people into the hallowed cloisters of Lola Towers for dinner. Monday night badminton continued, and term ended, and I have continued to toil on, getting coursework finished, and hoping to move on to revision before it's too late. And I have also read and written about nearly 30 books during the year.

As might be expected, I have also caught whatever it is that Mr A has. It is not yet serious - a bit of a cough, and three hours in bed on Monday afternoon, but I think we can expect worse over the coming weeks. Typical, just in time for the revision and exam period. But I went for a walk, and it has rained, and the temperature has been above freezing for three whole days with more to come, so much of the snow has now gone. Good news for our New Year holiday in the Peak District, and for travelling 50 miles to the exam in January, and for airport and flight availability for our snowboard holiday (although that's a month away and anything could happen by then). Meanwhile, Mr A continues to cough.

So that's it for 2010, it's been fun. I'm hoping that 2011 will be just as good if not better!

Working in teams

Given the amount of attention it gets on my course, I sometimes muse on the many and varied teams I have been part of. Three in particular came strongly to mind: the first was relatively early in my working career, when I was put forward for a European-funded project to introduce technology to blind and partially sighted young people in Northern Ireland. The other two were much more recent: a team formed to improve access to an important software product used in social services, and another which put on and managed a number of international conferences in the UK.

Our conference team became expert and well-organised, and produced splendid and enjoyable results. My role for most of the events we held was to elicit papers and sift out the ones for presentation, and then look after the speakers, and sometimes the technicians as well on the day. The real highlight for me was the year that we scheduled a 'debate' between various eminent persons on the topic of whether, thanks to technology, people with sight problems are better off than they were a generation ago, and managed to get Jeremy Paxman to agree to chair the session.

It was brilliant, he signed my conference programme (giving the impression that he thought it was one of the strangest requests he'd ever had), and then I went back into conference organiser mode, collecting one of the speakers and accompanying him to lunch. He was an educator, so I spotted one of the educators from my own organisation and asked my speaker if he'd like to join him for lunch. As we reached the table, I realised that the great Paxman was with the chap from my own organisation, so I was going to be lunching with him. I think that's my only celebrity encounter, but it was a good 'un.

In contrast, the Consortium that we formed in order to improve accessibility to a major piece of software used in UK social services departments was an eye opener, and could have been a case study for my current course. All the theoretical aspects of a serious partnership had to be covered - what exactly are we trying to achieve, who leads, what roles do team members have, how are meetings managed, who pays, and a whole lot more. The lessons I learned were that it's largely the individual characters, motivations and skills of the people on the team who determine whether the project succeeds or not. I think we were lucky, but I wonder whether that software is now accessible or not.

In university, all the options are laid out in a Powerpoint presentation: what makes a good team, why teams often fail, as if you could say to yourself "This piece of work needs a team, let me work out who can be involved and how we should manage the thing." In fact, we just came up with an idea, found someone else who was willing and able to help and even had some money, and then we just muddled through.

The fondest memories of teamwork came from that first European-funded project I was involved with. It came along when I was relatively young and inexperienced, based in Liverpool, and my remit extended over all of the north of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. At the time Northern Ireland was a battle-scarred place of deprivation that attracted all sorts of funding, and a project was devised that was intended to help blind and partially sighted young people to become computer-literate, and therefore more employable. I think about 12 people needed to be recruited, and I was put in charge of the technology. Except that there wasn't any.

I didn't really understand how this project was being run, who was in charge or what resources there were. It gradually became clear that the first stage required an assessment of what types of technology each of the participants would need in order to use a computer. We were going to gather in some Northern Ireland location, get to know the group, and I needed to do my assessments, except that I still didn't have any computers, nor any budget. I phoned a few people, and managed to cobble together two full systems by cannibalising old machines that didn't work any more.

In terms of social contact and work-related entertainment, that project left us all with stories aplenty. I remember finding out that all the speech synthesiser hardware I'd bought (this was before computers could do sound output) had 3.5 mm audio sockets, but all the headphones had 6.3 mm plugs, and I ended up on the streets of Belfast buying a soldering iron and 3.5 mm plugs and re-soldering the lot in the office.

On another visit, I was over in Belfast with a number of colleagues, one of whom was gay. For an evening's entertainment, one of the staff took him out drinking on the Falls Road (or it could have been the Shankill Road, I really didn't know much about Irish politics in those days). He was warned what he could and couldn't drink - asking for a port and lemon was distinctly discouraged in those tough working class bars. I have never seen a man so grey as my colleague the next day, who had survived the evening's drinking but had to make a number of swift exits from the office during the following morning. I have just looked him up - he's now an eminent politician in Scotland.

Yet another time during the course of this project, we went off for a weekend to a hotel near the Giant's Causeway in the very north of Ireland - I can't exactly remember the reason, but there used to be European Commission money to spend on this type of trip. There's another tourist attraction very nearby, Carrick-a-Rede, consisting of a rope bridge to a rocky island. One of the totally blind participants in the scheme was also partially paralysed down one side, but was insistent that he wanted to cross the rope bridge. With one member of staff behind him and one walking backwards ahead of him, he made it, but we were all anticipating the headlines in the papers should we have lost him.

That project was one of the highlights of my working life, for the feeling that we were doing something worthwhile as well as the social aspect. We have all gone our separate ways now, and I'm not in touch with anyone from that project any more, but I'm sure we all have fond memories of that particular project.

The pleasure of reading

My experience with reading that last paperback by Audrey Niffenegger reminded me of how I can get so engrossed in reading that the whole world disappears except for the words streaming directly into my brain, and I'm almost absorbing the story rather than reading it. It can be a similar experience with a really good film or play, when you forget where you are, but the difference is that there is no sound or living people involved, it's all done by the power of the written words.

I distinctly remember a moment from my childhood, in Miss Francis' class when I must have been 8or 9 years old, in one of the old Portakabin* classrooms that had that particular smell of pencils and plimsolls and polish. I had a book that I really wanted to carry on reading. Really really wanted to. But reading time was ending, and I knew we were going to have to do something else, but I really wanted to find out what happened next.

I knew for certain that if I read even one more word I would lose all consciousness of my surroundings for goodness knows how long, and then I wouldn't know what I was supposed to do, and everyone might be doing something completely different and I'd realise suddenly that I was in trouble. So with an enormous physical and mental effort I closed the book, and it was one of the most self-disciplined things that I'd ever had to do in my life up to that point.

The other slight disadvantage to my reading immersion problem is that at moments of great excitement, my reading speed accelerates to the point that all subtlety of language is lost. It's a bit like eating food too fast, where sustenance is achieved, but all the subtlety of flavour disappears as the food whizzes past the tastebuds.

That's one of the reasons that I enjoy audio books so much. Although it's possible to speed up the pace of narration slightly (using the wonder of the ipod) I don't do that, and I listen at the rate of the human voice - about five times slower than my normal print reading speed, and at least ten times slower than when my speed-reading gets out of control. The subtleties of language that speed by when I'm greedy for more story are fed to me morsel by morsel, and I have to savour each word before being allowed to move to the next.


Talking of reading, here is Mr A, hard at work on his Computing degree. In order to be certain that the crash helmet you have bought is not too tight, it is important to wear it for a significant period while keeping it relatively clean - i.e. not out on a bike ride where it can accumulate road debris and insects. So it all makes sense really.

* until I was quite old (probably teens), I thought that this word was pronounced 'Por-taka-bin'. It made a lot more sense when I realised how it ought to be said.

Homework: seven things

It's been a while since it last happened, but I've been tagged for some homework. It's not too onerous, so here are Seven Things I Haven't Mentioned Before On This Blog. Some of them are not very interesting, though.

1. I really like lentils: orange, green, brown, whatever. Most people have an aversion from early exposure to badly-cooked tasteless brown glop, much the same as school tapioca did for me. But mum always made a wicked lentil soup, and it was one of the first recipes I asked her for when I went to university. I have progressed beyond soup, onwards and upwards to lentil salad, seasoned with a vinaigrette or spiced up with some chilli. Dhal - loverly.

2. Before Lola II and I were called Lola, we shared a house in Manchester, which had a very stained carpet in the living room. Mum sent us a bottle of 1001 carpet cleaner (that had a price sticker in shillings and pence). The instructions were to rub the stains with the liquid, and then dab the area dry. While I reclined on the sofa, my sister did the hard work of vigorous rubbing, then I leaned over and lightly dabbed the area with a cloth. "Over to my assistant, Lola," she said, parodying some TV show of the time. You really had to be there to understand how funny this was, but we both liked the name so much that we adopted it. That was in 1991.

3. I have just been contacted via Facebook by my very first boyfriend. I can't remember how old I was, but still at school, possibly aged 15 or 16. He was very nice, made me laugh, and we must have gone out for, oh, maybe six weeks if memory serves. Two months? Three? It seemed like a long time back then. I wrote him a letter saying I didn't want to go out with him any more, and walked all the way to his house and back one day (and he lived a long way away) to deliver it. I don't think we ever met again.

4. Lola II and I once went to the Good Food Show in Birmingham, and volunteered to be guinea pigs in a cooking demonstration area, led by a presenter with a proper chef and a small audience. We were each given stickers to write our names on. As the demonstration proceeded, we all followed instructions at our workstations, mixing this and heating that. The presenter wandered around, talking to each participant, and was astonished to find not one, but two Lolas in her group. "What are the chances of that?" she said.

5. I have neither owned nor wanted either a pet or a child since I was old enough to be responsible for one. Actually, I'm not sure I'm old enough now.

6. After she'd finished university, Lola II signed up to a programme that took her to Japan for a year, to help out with teaching English at a secondary school, and I went to visit her out there.* I'd travelled for an eternity by plane and train, and finally reached her apartment in the early evening local time. I was completely exhausted by the travelling and the time difference. Lola II wanted to celebrate my arrival and catch up on everything, but I just needed to sleep, and she was most disappointed that I needed to go straight to bed.

I woke up in the night, completely disorientated, but needing the toilet. It was dark, I didn't know the layout of the apartment, I staggered out of my room and tried one of the doors, which turned out to be Lola II's bedroom. She woke up, delighted, thinking I'd now recovered from the journey. I was still asleep, just wanting the toilet, standing there in the wrong room in a stupor, trying to find the complex mix of words of reassurance to thank her for her concern, that I would be better later but just now I still needed to sleep but still appreciated her welcoming gesture, and I was actually looking for the toilet.

What I managed to say was, "Shut up!"

In the morning, after I had apologised as best I could, she told me that I had pulled the door shut over the telephone cable, wedging it so hard she could hardly open it next morning.

7. I have just seen the most extraordinary music video - apparently one of several by the same artist, Lior Narkis. Don't worry too much about the lyrics, it's just an ordinary bland pop song ("You're sweet, I want to hug you"), and stay with it even though it seems rather tasteless - it all gets very surreal just after 2 minutes.


* This is what has fuelled my passion for sushi ever since. I'm not sure that any non-Japanese sushi can match that perfect mixture of rice, fish, vinegar, wasabi, soy: all the flavours melding together and hitting the tastebuds in perfect harmony for the first time.

Pen

I have been enjoying writing with the ink pen I found. Revision is a painful torment, but I love the act of writing, and this pen with the purple ink was really helping - until it broke when I was changing the cartridge. It is beyond repair - the plastic disintegrated.

I fashioned a temporary bodge out of tape, but was ready to go out and buy a new pen. I thought I'd just check in the tin where I found that one, where I keep all sorts of fancy pens. And sure enough, hiding in there was an even older fountain pen, the one I used at school, with my name scratched in the side.

The sight of my hand holding that pen and writing with it brings back a very strong visual memory of school. It writes beautifully, still, despite being about 35 years old.

---

The first exam is nearly upon us, and I'm just about ready. The subject, Health Promotion, has not engaged my interest very much, which makes revision that bit more difficult. It is about the ways that public health workers try to make us more healthy, whether by diet and nutrition, sun safety, physical activity, cutting down smoking or whatever, and the reasons why we tend to resist their efforts.

We've looked at partnership working, community development, Health Needs Assessment and evaluation of interventions, use of the media and the 'settings approach'. There are tens of official documents from the World Health Organisation, the UK Dept. of Health, the Health Development Agency (now incorporated into the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence) dating back to the WHO conference at Alma Ata in 1978.

The main problem with it all is my past work experience. All the policy papers and initiatives and academic theory are all very well and good. It should be possible to plan, implement and evaluate successful interventions to improve some aspect of health based on sound theory and cast-iron evidence. It's just that in real life, stuff gets in the way.

There's a project you think will really work, but the funds are only available for something else, or the partners aren't that committed, or the timescale doesn't work, and you will definitely have to fill in a soul-destroying 20-page form. As soon as it is given the go-ahead, one of the identified members of the project will announce she is pregnant and another key individual will change jobs.

---

Anyway, the snow conditions have been much less severe than was anticipated, and I'm tucked up in a student room on campus, ready for a short walk rather than a freezing drive to the exam venue tomorrow morning. I have a hot water bottle, and I discovered and activated the 'boost' button for the small room heater. I brought a thermos of tea and food for tonight so I don't have to venture out unless I want to. I shall run through my notes one last time, perhaps attempt a couple more questions from past exam papers, and that will be that.

Thoughts on being a student

Four things I remember most vividly from being a student the first time round, in my late teens and early twenties:

• Freedom to do what I wanted in my own space for the first time. I could read a book or take a shower at 3 am without any questions asked.
• A sinking sense of bafflement and perplexity at the subject matter. I really didn't have much of a clue about engineering.
• Meeting many people who have become long-term friends, who make me laugh and make me think, and who still seem to like me despite everything I've done.
• The 24-hour nature of the role of student. There are no boundaries to the day, no 9-to-5 routines. No time off. Any time spent having fun was time that I should have spent working, because there was always more to do.
  

Being a student now is very different in these four respects.

• Living with Mr A means conforming to conventional behaviour on the whole. This is a shame, but the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. Most of the time.
  
• I absolutely love my course, and unlike engineering, I really 'get' the subject. I do extra just because it's interesting.
  
• I don't think that I'll be in touch with anyone I've met through university in five years' time, let alone after 25 years. This is undoubtedly my problem, not theirs.
  
• I am able to work in the early morning and into the evenings because at my age I'd rather be sitting at my desk than sleeping late or climbing over the college gate at 2 a.m. And there's nothing on TV worth watching.
  

Apart from my badminton and mealtimes, I've been working 12+ hour days for the last week, and am set to continue until mid-November, apart from a little break for a family gathering this weekend. I've nearly finished two of the three pieces of coursework, but we are set some more very soon. It doesn't need to be handed in for a month, so I'm definitely taking at least one weekend off.

School's 90th birthday

The secondary school I attended from 1975 to 1982 is housed in:

"a building of great character, the former manor of Highams built in 1768, and has extensive and beautiful grounds designed by Humphrey Repton. The school opened in 1919." [From the school website.]

Of course, I appreciated none of this when I was there, but I returned last weekend to celebrate its 90th birthday, at an event run by the Old Girls Association (for it was, and still is, a school for girls only).

The main reason I attended the event was that, as an 18th century building, the school had a good deal of character, and I wanted to explore the nooks and crannies: the 'twisty passage' between the dining room and the main corridor to the Hall, the hidden spiral staircases and corridors of classrooms. I was no longer able to join together the fragments of memories of classrooms and corridors and staircases into a coherent whole. The fact that a lot of other Old Girls would be getting in my way was inconvenient, but manageable.

It was hugely satisfying to explore, especially the places we weren't allowed to go when we attended the school - entering by the big front door was forbidden to all but members of staff. As I wandered, I found corridors and rooms existed that I had completely forgotten. For seven years the geography of the school had been imprinted on my brain, seemingly unforgettable, and now I couldn't even remember where the art room had been.

I found my way to the upper sixth form 'flat', right at the top of the building, accessed via a narrow spiral staircase. I imagine that this is where the servants quarters were, in the original manor house. Within this flat is a 'turret' with windows all round, and in my time this area was the preserve of the prefects and Head Girl. Back then, the door onto the roof wasn't locked, although I'm sure we weren't supposed to go out. The views all around were spectacular.

I visited many of the classrooms, strolled down the corridors, climbed up and down staircases with wonderful wrought iron detailing, peered through windows into familiar labs. The 'Honours Boards' showed Old Girls' achievements in the 1950s, including those who had become State Registered Nurses, of whom the most notorious is poor Ina Buckett. We all felt for her - what were her parents thinking when they named her?

Going into the library, I was taken aback by the memory of that exact smell, when I used to retreat there to do a bit of quiet reading. In the geography room, the time when Mr Nivison sang the national anthem of the Isle of Man came to mind. I peered into the physics lab and remembered the rheostats: large cylinders wrapped in wire with a big old slider. I glanced into the biology prep room, where my mum used to work in the last two years of my school career.

The medical room was where we lined up for our BCG vaccination, next to the rack where hockey sticks were kept. The Hall, with the same light fittings, same huge steps up to the stage - not bad for more than thirty years' service, although of course we girls weren't allowed on the stage in normal circumstances. It seems the details of where we were and weren't allowed to be are almost more vivid than what I did in the various rooms.

Meanwhile, the formal timetable for the School Birthday continued, and the scarily familiar sound of the school bell called us to assemble in the Hall. The vice-chairman of the OGA proceeded to conduct the AGM in a wonderful, half-serious, half-teasing manner, encouraging us in our rendering of the school songs, which were belted out in the most enthusiastic manner imaginable. This was followed by tea and chat, when I finally got round to talking to those of my peers who were also there.

I have written previously about our class reunions, but for me this event was more about nostalgia for the school building itself. I hardly visited the grounds, which are also amazing, and the newly built (in the 1970's) lower sixth form block, which stands apart from the main building. I didn't go to the brand new sports hall, and missed seeing what is now in the building that used to be the swimming pool. But no matter, I achieved my main aim, and renewed my acquaintance with a quirky but much loved old building, in much the same state of external decrepitude as it was in my day. Some things don't change.

A philatelic story

This post is about my dad, and written by him.

I have been collecting stamps for most of my life. It started in earnest in 1948. We were under Arab siege in Jerusalem and the People's Directorate established a postal service and produced stamps - Jewish National Fund stock overprinted 'POST'. Here was a chance to start a collection of a new country from the very beginning.

The Jordanians were lobbing 3" mortars shells into the city, but at 15 years one is not fearful. So I hurried the 2 miles to the post office to buy the series of 3 values - on two different occasions (they changed the design) and to post the 'first day covers' to myself.

Various other Jewish sites issued their own stamps: Haifa, Safed, Rishon le-Zion - partly for postal service for their isolated residents and partly as a source of income from local collectors. Some weeks later the State of Israel was declared and the regular stamps arrived in Jerusalem.

My father had been an employee of the Palestine Mandate administration - which ceased on 15th May. He was now unemployed, pending the establishment of the Israeli structures. We had no income and the new stamps were expensive - so I did not buy them. Later I had to pay much more.

But soon I kept buying new issues as mint stamps and first day of issue covers. I became a member of the British Association of Palestine-Israel Philatelists (later the Holyland Philatelic Society) and I edited their Bulletin for a time. And later I added two other new stamp issues: the United Nations, and the Channel Islands. And as I resided in Britain, I also collected GB. When Britain started various devices for the mechanical cancellation and sorting of letters, I found it very interesting and joined the Postal Mechanization Study Circle.

It was clearly the thrill of collecting, and the possession of 'complete series', that motivated me. My family was totally indifferent, and time marched on. I stopped my subscriptions for new stamps. At the same time, the world scene of philately changed.

First, excess stamp issues just milked collectors: Who is interested in 'space exploration' issued by Yemen?!? And the designs were becoming far less attractive. Second, e-mail cut out much of the use of the little colourful labels and the conveyance of paper letters: the aggressive postal workers on strike are cutting off the branch on which they are sitting. And third, youngsters have shifted their time, interest and passion from philately to computers and ipods.

My wife has promised that if I die before I have disposed of my collection, it will all end up as a spectacular bonfire. So I am going to sell the lot, while I keep swallowing my pills and taking care when crossing the road, until it is completed.

If anybody among my readers is an interested collector, do drop me an email - maybe we'll find someone who would appreciate this type of collection. The mainstream dealers aren't showing much interest so far.

Weddings

I hate weddings.

I suppose I could say more truthfully that I hate traditional weddings. The sort with meringue dresses, unfamiliar churches, top hats and tails, bridesmaids wearing matching dresses that really don't suit those who aren't shaped like a fashion model, ushers in kilts, guests in uncomfortable clothes, hats and new shoes, ungainly halting speeches, earsplitting discos run by strange DJs, and a fair bit of drunken incoherence by the end of the evening.

Most of my close friends who are married did the deed in the late 80's and early 90's. At that point, I thought it was the actual marriage service that I was finding particularly objectionable, so I negotiated for an exemption at the next wedding I was invited to, so I could just come to the party afterwards.

It was interesting to find out what the bride and groom's perception was when I proposed this alteration. I had thought that as in other party situations, an apology would be accepted with good grace, and perhaps some relief. In fact, it prompted an unexpectedly serious and in-depth discussion about the roles of hosts and guests in the wedding situation. It appears that non-attendance, especially when voluntary and not due to some other pressing engagement, can actually be taken as a mild insult.

But I found that it wasn't just the ceremony that was upsetting me. The amount of money spent on that perfect day seemed disproportionate to the amount of fun that I was having, or contributing. So, to try to avoid giving offence in future, I spread the word among friends and colleagues and anyone who seemed likely to want me at their wedding that I wouldn't be going to any more weddings, or receptions, or parties afterwards.

With the passing of years I have come to believe that my wedding phobia consists of three separate and independent parts: a) I consider that the emotional content of two-person relationships should remain private, b) I hate seeing (and contributing to) unnecessary extravagance, and c) I don't like parties. The first two reasons keep me away from most wedding-type ceremonies (and had a very large influence on my own wedding arrangements), and the last has been a revelation! I don't like parties!

Everyone is supposed to like parties - the very word implies enjoyment, fun, having a great time. I look back at the number of parties I went to when younger, when I was thinking "Is this what having fun is like? Why, then, am I not enjoying myself?" So now I go to very few parties, host even fewer, and that's fine by me.

Having said all that, last weekend Mr A and I found ourselves at a wedding party. But it was OK, for a number of very good reasons:

• we weren't invited to the ceremony
• it was very low key - in a Sea Scout hall, no hats, no meringue dresses, and a homemade buffet and BBQ
• I was confident that there would be a group of guests that I knew - the couple getting married had also been on the Plymouth-Dakar charity trip that Mr A did, and several others from that trip were there, including Biker Couple whom we had visited earlier in the summer
  
• we were camping.
  

There was a good deal of live music, including the groom and his ukulele-playing friends, a couple of guitarists, and a ceilidh band with a lead saxophonist/flautist instead of a fiddle player. The food was exceptionally good, and while none of our group was particularly interested in the dancing, we had a nice time.

Six of us ended up camping - I love camping! - and luckily the weather was fine. In the morning I was looking forward to a cup of tea from Mr A's all-powerful camping stove (runs on anything), which this time failed due to a lack of any fuel at all. He'd emptied it out completely so that he could take it on the flight that brought him back from Europe when his bike failed. So we all went to a nearby cafe and had a proper breakfast. I feel I should record that Biker Couple made me laugh so much over the weekend that my face hurt.

A great teacher

Mrs T, who taught me to play the clarinet from 1972-82, has retired, even though she hardly looks any older now than she did back then. Six of us from those olden days turned up for the party, and I'm glad we were there to play tribute to a wonderful teacher. I count myself very lucky to be taught by her.

I must have started learning the clarinet at about 8 years old, at which point the instrument would have been almost bigger than me. Both the London Borough of Redbridge and my parents were very supportive of music in schools, and I was given the opportunity to choose what I'd like to play. I first met Mrs T in a little room smelling of old socks and floor polish next to the school assembly hall. D had already started learning the oboe, I couldn't get a sound out of a flute (I still can't) so I thought I'd have a go at the clarinet.

It was some time later that my own clarinet actually arrived, in a black plastic case with the sections held in place by blue foam. It wasn't at all clear how they fitted together. I suspect that the reed showed up a little later in the proceedings. I was very excited. At my first lesson I must have been shown how to get a sound out the thing, and having played the recorder I already knew the basics. I was equipped with a little red notebook where Mrs T would write down my homework, and that first week she suggested I try and play a few things by ear. At home, I had to ask my parents if they knew who this composer was.

The music teacher in my primary school was another brilliant, if eccentric, character. He ran a school orchestra that included any pupil who could get a note out of an instrument. Percussionists weren't overlooked, and he even encouraged conducting and composition. At the age of eleven, I had a go at writing music. He even gave me the opportunity to perform a bit of Mozart's Clarinet Quintet in a school concert. By this time, I was deemed good enough to be given a 'music award', which meant lessons on my own with Mrs T, and membership of Redbridge Music School. This was a wonderful organisation, running orchestras, choirs, wind bands as well as music and theory lessons on Friday nights and Saturday mornings.

I was desperate to play the piano too, and eventually I was allowed to have lessons, although I've never been quite as comfortable with piano as clarinet. I played in the wind band as well as the orchestra, and went on summer music and activity holidays in the Redbridge outdoor pursuits centre in Wales as many times as I was allowed. We played at Snape in Aldeburgh, at St John's Smith Square, London, and in the Redbridge Schools Choral Festival at the Albert Hall in 1982, where I performed the clarinet solo in Henry Wood's Fantasia on British Sea Songs. That performance was recorded, and I still have the record. That was a high point.

In the background for all this time was Mrs T, teaching, encouraging and supporting. I don't remember ever being told off, although like any youngster there were times when I was less than enthusiastic about practising. In fact, I don't remember Mrs T ever getting angry at all - the abiding memories are of her infectious laughter, her smiling eyes, her encouragement, her enthusiasm.

After I left school, we somehow kept in touch. It was mostly down to other friends of mine - I don't think I would have managed to maintain the contact on my own. Mrs T (or Kath, as we can now call her) moved away to the middle of Essex, and I learned about her work there from the glowing tributes paid at the retirement party. The school music department there has grown from one vandalised piano in a damp music room into a department in its own building with a reputation as a centre of excellence. They were lucky to have her working there too.

Now that she has retired, Kath and her husband, the wonderful Richard, will have time to spend travelling, indulging themselves, and essentially doing all those things that one can't do at the same time as a full time job. I wish them all the best in the world.

A busy week

Last Sunday, Lola II and I 'helped' dad to sort through the stamp and coin collection that dated back to his teenage years, plus a few family 'heirlooms'. It was difficult for all of us: for him because we were proposing to dispose of a lifetime's work; for Lola II and me because we couldn't muster a scrap of interest in this stuff he has cared for and cared about for so long. First day covers, miniature and minister sheets, 'Tet Besh' configurations, piedfort coins, Maundy money, Churchill crowns - someone wake me up when it's over. But the English exercise book where he'd written about King Lear while at school in the 1950's, or the metal tin that contained a powder puff belonging to our grandmother, still retaining a hint of fragrance - I'd keep those in my living room, to pick up and look at from time to time.

Then during the past week I've been to Nottingham, to learn about and help with the PhD that one of my lecturers is doing. I've done a bit of data entry from returned questionnaires, and took part in a set of role play scenarios as the 'patient', while two proper dietitians were taking turns to play 'good' and 'bad' helpers to demonstrate various different communications skills.

I was a single mum with two children aged 5 and 7 living in a council flat, and my problem was a chap living downstairs who had his TV turned up loud at all hours, keeping us all from sleeping at night. There were six little segments, each of which we filmed once as 'good' and once as 'bad'. By the end of the day all three of us were exhausted, and it was difficult to remember that I don't live in a flat or have any children. The video clips will form part of a communications skills course for health professionals.

Meanwhile, Mr A was away on a motorbike trip in France. He was tipped off about it by a biker friend, and it involved following directions in the manner of orienteering (but with GPS), mostly off-road. This is the sort of thing he loves, but the pressure was on - many of the other participants were from the army, days were very long, and the riding was fast and difficult. At some point he lost the clutch and most of a brake lever, and eventually decided that the bike was too unroadworthy to ride back home (even though he could probably have managed it). His bike insurance included European recovery, so he gave them a call, and then spent 10 hours hanging about at the side of the road and in garages before finally reaching a hotel. The whole thing was a nightmare, but he made it back eventually, although it will be a week or two before we see the bike again. He says that apart from the journey home, it was a really good trip.

Mr A's troubles didn't end there though, because today I was called upon to wield the clippers and take his hair down to a reasonable length. Due to an unfortunate misunderstanding he has ended up completely bald, rather than his usual no. 2 cut, and he is not too happy about it.