Are you listening?

 1n 1999, just 4 months before the shiny bright new aluminium, as those of us who liked to play with words were calling it, I sat with my mum, having a coffee outside Costa (very continental) by the bridge at Chelmsford. These were days before computers had properly invaded our lives but we were all worried that the Y2K coding error would crash the world. 

‘People worry too much,’ mum said, lighting up a second cigarette. ‘They always do.’

‘But if they’ve not planned for a two-zero at the beginning of the date everything could go off line.’ I said, twiddling my hair around my finger. 

She humphed and changed the subject.

‘Sometimes it feels as though the universe is listening to you. Do you know what I mean?’

I didn’t but she went on to explain how you could be indecisive about something and all of a sudden the answer would be everywhere. 

‘You think the world is trying to tell you something?’ I laughed. 

For a non-religious, feet-on-the-ground, no-nonsense person my mum was remarkably superstitious. 

I have been thinking about that conversation a lot recently, especially as whenever I turn on the telly or walk into a room where it is on, a disembodied voice says, ‘Always keep away from children.’ I know it’s a washing powder advert but maybe the universe is sending a message or death isn’t as final as I thought a mum is having a laugh with me. 

Our conversation had continued, talking about computers and how they’d never be able to keep up because the world changes all the time. 

‘How would it know something had gone out of fashion?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know, maybe if less people are searching for it?’

‘I mean,’ she continued, ‘You never see men with gardening tools strapped to the crossbar of their bike anymore, do you?’

I agreed but wasn’t sure I ever had.

‘They used to be everywhere. Old men, cycling to the allotment or off to do some odd jobs.’

There was nothing more to say.

‘Shall we go?’ I said, turning round to pick up my shopping. My breath caught in my throat, ‘Mum, look!’

She turned.

‘See, the world is listening!’

The breeze ruffled her hair as the man cycled past, hoe attached to the crossbar, watering can dangling from each handlebar. 

I wonder what she would have made of tech actually listening to you?  Would I have popped round to find her shouting, ‘Oi Alexa, play Etta James.’ or would she have been as reluctant as I am. 

I do not trust that Alexa. For one  she can never seem to hear me, even when I haven’t lost my voice. She’s always much more keen to do something once it has been repeated by a man. 

Over Christmas we went to two different houses where Alexa already had her feet under the table. On Boxing Day the pressure to take it in turns to shout at Alexa to choose the next ‘banging tune’ brought me out in a cold sweat. And on Christmas Eve she ignored the woman of the house, who wanted the lights on until a man said it. The Long Suffering Husband thought he’d have a chat with her and a laugh.

‘Alexa! Play AC/DC Highway to Hell!’

It wasn’t a highway to hell kind of evening until that point but Alexa was up for the challenge.

‘Playing Highway to Hell through Amazon music. You have been signed up for free trial then you will be charged 10.99 a month.’

Shock filled the room. The LSH laughed awkwardly. The woman of the house shouted at Alexa to stop. AC/DC filled the room. The man told her to stop and the music ceased. The man frantically tapped at his phone.’

‘I can’t do it from here. I’ll need to log onto the computer.’

Alexa was threatening to spoil the party. The LSH had broken out into a sweat. It was decided that people could worry about it at another time.

It must be hell going to parties if you are called Alexa.

A few days ago the LSH had a message to say that he could breathe easy. No one knew what Alexa had been playing at and there was no subscription to Amazon music. 

It’s enough for me that the other appliances are listening. 

I grew up in a house where the radio was on all the time. Background music or chat from the Archers and habits are hard to break. The dog likes Classic FM and we leave it on for him over night. Radio 3 started playing experimental birdsong at 3 am a year ago and so he went back to the tunes everyone knows.

The other morning the LSH was going through the shopping list just as Maggie from Solihull was making a request for her cat. The LSH said that he had already bought marmalade a second before Maggie told us the name of her cat - Marmalade.

‘That’s weird,’ we said together.

However, not as weird as the thing that has just happened. I suppose I should have expected it at some time because my washing machine does finish by playing a short excerpt of a famous piece of classical music. However, Schubert Lieders are definitely out of fashion and no one expects to hear a perfect duet of the trout on radio and washing machine. In fact, the likelihood of that happening is so remote I probably should buy a lottery ticket. 

While I’m gone I’ll leave you with this little rumour. Apparently, Samsung chose this tune for their end cycle sound because they test their machines by putting a trout through a normal cycle and if it comes out damaged then it doesn’t pass quality control. 

Jesus Christ

 ‘Where were you?

We were waiting for the 12 days of Cheesemas and Books-in day.  Maybe even some dry comments on spending time with relatives, the fact that jigsaw puzzles should be for life and not just for Christmas. 

But you were AWOL,’ you cry.

You wonder if I was having an amazing time. Maybe partying or travelling and too busy to bother with words in a blog. Maybe I was writing other things. A little part of you wondered if I was OK but you didn’t like to ask.

The truth is I have done nothing. Absolutely nada, nix, nil. Who wants to read about nothing? 

I fell into the Christmas holiday, exhausted and coughing. I put the decorations up and hung my sign.

Usually I hang the sign and say to myself, ‘This house believes in central heating.’

Not this year.

At the beginning of December we had our annual service and our tank was condemned. The Long Suffering Husband had only mentioned a noise from the timer when we first turn it on. The engineer changed the part and the noise got worse. Unbearably worse. The part he needed next was obsolete. The only solution: a new tank and for obvious reasons British Gas contract that out to Dynorod. The engineer left apologies and 2 blower heaters and a promise of a call from Dynorod in 4 hours. The tank was obviously out of stock and the factory shut down until after Christmas. 

My whole personality, through the festive period has been about keeping the house warm(ish). There are rooms we have shut up (my study - winging next term’s lessons) which give us a good insight into the outside temperature (always warmer). I think that I can’t go out because I have to put another log on the fire soon. The dog has thoroughly enjoyed being a breathing, heated blanket and worships at the alter of the blower. 

What do we believe in now, if it’s not central heating?

I confess that Santa will always be my man. The dog had me up 3 times in the night on Christmas Eve at half hourly intervals from midnight. Something had spooked him and he had to check the roofs. 

The LSH, on the other hand, is more of a Jesus Christ man. I’m assuming so because of the number of times he has mentioned him over the last few weeks. New Year’s Eve being one of them. There we were, reading in bed. Double duvets, bed socks and jumpers, reminiscing about the 1970s, when the clock ticked into the New Year.

‘Jesus Christ! Who are these animals? Happy New Year,’ he said.

I laughed but didn’t sit up in bed to watch the fireworks in case I got cold. 

‘It’s like a war zone. If they wake the dog up and I have to get out of bed ….Jesus Christ!’

It has, obviously, been perfectly fine. Just not something you would want to read about. 

The 6th of December - Epiphany. And my epiphany is I am going to be pretty grumpy (and possibly smelly) as I go back to real life with the promise that it ‘should’ all be fixed by the end of January.

One day at a time

 The advice is clear.

“Just take one day at a time,” everyone says.

Excuse me while I swear. 

What stupid advice. Can you imagine? 

“Right kids, today we are performing a nativity. Practice? Oh don’t be silly, we’re just taking one day at a time.”

Although, on second thoughts, being in the middle of a run of nativity shows, you do sometimes wonder if any of the children were at the practices. No music teacher lives one day at a time. I’m currently putting events in my diary for events right up to and including this time next year. 

Life doesn’t work in chunks of one day at a time. Some days have at least seven in them and other days leave me wandering round corridors, bereft, asking if anyone knows what I should be doing.

This year, I mixed my diary up and put two weeks of events in the same week. In the first of those weeks I panicked, wondering how I was going to survive a music event every day and sometimes two and the second of those weeks has left me  a confused gibberish wreck, unsure of what day it is.

“It’s because people say, ‘See you at the concert on Thursday.’ They only have one Thursday concert before Christmas and you have four.” My wise fellow musician friend said. That was a relief. I just thought I needed to check where my marbles were.

It’s ok. They’re still in the pot

This morning, though, I’ve woken up with a cold. The obligatory, “Oh, you’ve stopped. You’ve got time for me,” variety that comes at the end of every term. 

NO! There’s another week and two days, 5 events, a weekend away to fit in before the end of term. I will not be ill yet. Not today. One day at a time and this is not the day. 

Said no one ever

 There’s a man that lives in my head. I only met him once. A guest lecturer. Salt and pepper beard, patches on the elbows of his tweed jacket, slip-on beige loafers with no socks and a slowness of speech that made you stop and listen to him. It was a throw-away comment that trapped him. Now, he pops up; his image as clear as the July day I met him, whenever the phenomenon he was talking about happens.

“The Taoists believe that you should pay attention. If you hear the same thing three times then you are being sent a message.”

This possibly stuck in my head because another student commented. The boy said, “When I got in the car this morning my gear knob came off in my hand. It was the third time that’s done that.”

Genuine embarrassment for the boy but hilarity for the rest of us. 

In the last three days I’ve heard the phrase, ‘said no one ever,’ or a variation of it three times and now this Zen-chap is sitting in my head, asking me to consider what it all means. 

It wouldn’t have been in any way remarkable if it had been 2015, when the phrase was dropped into conversation like punctuation. However, it fell out of favour after a Guardian journalist wrote a column suggesting it was no longer funny and should be retired. Maybe she didn’t have the influence I’ve given her and only wrote the article because she saw how bored people were getting with this particular locution. 

This week I heard someone say it in response to someone who said that they loved Christmas Jumpers day. Fair point. It might be fun in an office but with the rise in home-working, most people wear  PJs and a Christmas jumper all year round. And in schools…Well…the horror of one extra level of excitement when they’ve had chocolate for breakfast and are completely exhausted from all that being a pig in the nativity (pretty sure Jewish farmers didn’t keep pigs) But I do genuinely love a Christmas jumper. I would wear them all year round. 

Then I was watching the new Christmas film, That Christmas, where the line was repeated again. 

“Everyone loves watching children perform a Nativity, said no one ever.”

To be honest, it felt like a harsh criticism on my life. 

Music teachers in a library

Then, my lovely choir were singing at the library. A smattering of children from the senior school, who have thick enough skins to play music despite being called a nerd, were also there and I was having a chat with some fellow music teachers (a rare treat) when one of my kids came bouncing up. 

“Can we sing the song in Latin that we learnt last week in music?” she asked earnestly.

Before I could reply, the senior school teacher laughed an addendum. 

“Said no child ever!”

“Except those I teach,” I smiled back.

The child was affronted, “What’s wrong with that?”

“You’ve made my day,” the other teacher told her, “A primary school child wanting to sing in Latin. You’ll go to Cambridge, you!”

“Where’s Cambridge?” the girl asked, looking worried about how far she might have to travel. 

So, now the beardy man is sitting in my head. He’s just lit a pipe and is waiting while I consider the message the universe is sending. 

Maybe, like the idiom, I’m past my best and need to be retired. Or maybe I’m still enjoying doing the things that no one really wants. Maybe I get a perverse pleasure from torturing the world with Christmas songs, jumpers and Latin. 

“Could be,” the man in my head says.

He isn’t specific about which of those it could be. When I push him he shrugs his shoulders and says that he never had any answers and had only ever suggested I listen. 

Funny and Fine

 My ‘return to blogging’ blog worried some people. I am, obviously, perfectly fine. Not only that but I’m in a much better place than I’ve been for seven years. Anyone who knows me, and sees me on a daily basis knows that. Not wanting to blog came out of a fear (clearly accurate) that I would have a compulsion to let it slip that the path to recovery isn’t one straight upwards line. Weirdly, I felt shame about going a little bit backwards. However, I am living a great life.

In Playground, the Richard Powers’ novel that was on the Booker Prize list (yes I did read the whole list - don’t tell me I’m not living my best life), he has a character write an essay for a school entrance exam to show how clever he is. The theme of the essay is something about the most important characteristic of a person needs to have a good life. This character concludes that it is sadness because if you can’t feel sad you have no empathy. If you’ve read any books by Richard Powers then you’ll know there were far more words than that but as I read I was thinking that he had it wrong. We all feel sadness but not everyone feels empathy. Some people get stuck in their own sadness and can’t look out.

For me, it is a sense of humour that is most important. Being able to laugh gets us through the worst. Ask anyone who has sat around the bed of a dying loved one and they will recall moments when they laughed. Sometimes they will tell you those stories with a sense of shame but it is laughter that gets you through. 

Laughter and books.

That’s all it takes. 

The beauty of these two things is lost on some people, especially men of a certain age who have a lot to say about my hobby of reading and walking. I’ve even been asked if my husband minds. You have to laugh at that!

If it wasn’t for laughter and books I wouldn’t have had one of the best evenings of my life last night.

It was the bookshop quiz. Every answer was book related and I took my family, who love a quiz but don’t read very much. I explained that everything is a book. Every film, TV series, major idea was a book first. Readers are the true pioneers of early ideas but everyone catches up with the best ones eventually. 

It was a hard quiz but there were also cocktails and in the end we came 3rd, because the non-readers have a better memory than me and everything was a book first.

The most difficult round was where you were given a quote from a book and you had to say where it was from. Any line from any book in any genre from any period. Words swam. They seemed familiar. I wrote them down in my notebook. Then I guessed. This round was entirely down to me.

“Oh, I’m sure I’ve read that,” I said.

“It could be anything. It’s just words.”

“This is hard.”

I looked at what I’d written for question 4.

“Whatever arseholes are made of his and mine are the same.”

I was sure I'd have remembered that.

"Maybe it's Sally Rooney," I said, "It's the kind of thing she'd write."

We all agreed because none of us enjoyed Normal People (either as a book or film)

Then someone across the room said, "I don't know the book but I've seen it when I was looking at quotes for my wedding."

My eyes popped out of my head and the old sniffy prudish lady in my worried about the youth of today.

When it came to the answers they read out the quote again and told us that it was Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (a favourite of mine).

Have you ever laughed so much it hurt? We all did. We will for ages.

"Arseholes!" someone will only have to say.

"It should be a quote. I can read it at your wedding,' my son offered my daughter.

"Honestly though, someone should write that. It could be Sally Rooney. She does write about arseholes."

I'm sure you've worked it out already but 'Our Souls' and 'Arseholes' sound remarkably similar in an Essex accent.

Really, I am living my best life. 

The Christmas Creep and other frighteners

 I haven't written a blog since September. 

It turns out that going back to school this year was more terrifying than I had anticipated and not something I wanted to share with you. Suffice it to say, I have been a basket-case. I won't go into details but a first aid course where the instructor pretends to die (quite accurately) triggered all of my suppressed PTSD. 

Woah! There you go. Oversharing again.

This is why I stopped blogging.

Yes, I pretended it was because serious writing was taking over. I pretended that it was because I didn't have time. I pretended that no one wanted to hear the workings of my random mind (that's probably true). However, in truth, I didn't want to accidentally confess how broken I  still am and this in not what I came here to say.

I wanted to talk about the Christmas Creep.  

At the beginning of November, my normal anxiety turns into extra special sparkly Christmas anxiety. This always happens. I know that Christmas shouldn't start until December but for a music teacher it always after Halloween. How else do you get small children to learn Christmas songs in time if you don't start in November? Even then, it's a push and I usually go for enthusiasm over beauty.

There’s a conflict. The middle class woman of a certain age in me wants to issue caution. It’s not Christmas yet. Don’t peak too soon. However, the need to be ready is an ever present pressure. 

This year, I started to feel the anxiety moths fluttering in my stomach in October. Admittedly, there were other things going on, which is not what I came here  to say but I felt them and knew they were the tinsel-laden festive variety.

Then, on the radio, I kept hearing about the Christmas Creep.

Ah yes, I thought, we all know the Christmas Creep. What a perfect time of year for him. He gets to dress up in a red or green costume and have small children sit on his knee. (Disclaimer: not all costume wearers are creeps and some creeps come dressed as they are)

Don’t you love a vintage Christmas card?

But I was wrong, the Christmas Creep is a thing not a person. It's the weird phenomenon that has happened since Covid, where people start Christmas far too early. And this is getting earlier each year. It was understandable when everyone was isolated. A few twinkly lights and tinsel in your knickers was enough to help you through those tricky times. Except that it turns out, our existential dread and hatred of dark cold winters (even though it was still 20 degrees outside when it started) is getting harder to bear. 

Now that we are in December, the weather has got colder,  children are having chocolate for breakfast and the world was beginning to feel right again. The balance  restored and it wasn’t too soon.

‘Phew!’ I thought, ‘That’s the end of the Christmas Creep for another year.’ and I relaxed. 

Then the Long Suffering Husband had a bee in his bonnet about something. 

“What I don’t understand is, why now?”

It seemed as though we needed a Christmas Creep, after all. 

Gregg Wallace became the new topic of conversation in our house. (Details of which can be seen in any newspaper - what he did or didn’t do, rather than our discussion)

The only reason for why now, that I can think of, is that we are missing the Christmas Creep and he fits the bill perfectly. He’s actions weren’t illegal, just immoral and creepy. If there’s a gap in the market then why not fill it? Lucky for handsy Uncle Bill that he’s not known by many people!

As a middle class woman of a certain age I’m pleased creepy behaviour is being discussed. If we can do anything, we should be able to remind people that some things are not necessary and should remain in the past.

Shouting, “Cor, nice melons,” from the top of scaffolding, sending apprentices out for a long weight and other comments that people claim are funny but are designed to humiliate younger people are not necessary for a functioning society and comedy has moved on. 

Have I forgotten?

 It was my first day back at school and I had the scaries.

I tried it all.

 I begged, “Do I have to?”

I cried, “But I don’t feel well.”

I bargained, “Just one more day. I’ll go tomorrow.”

And I lied, “I don’t know where my shoes are and my trousers are too tight.” 

Okay, so the trouser thing wasn’t a lie as I have been on holiday to America. Unfortunately, there was no Mum, exasperatedly telling me that I had to go because she was sick of me under her feet ALL SUMMER LONG! WHY DO THEY HAVE TO HAVE SIX WEEKS OFF? WHAT A WAY TO SPOIL AUGUST!

No, it was all down to me to be the adult to my scared inner child and my adult was useless. The Long Suffering Husband was playing golf but he would have just encouraged me to join him in early retirement. 

“What if I can’t remember how to teach?” I asked myself.

“You probably won’t. It’s been a while and you’re not getting any younger!”

“I don’t really know what I’m going to do with them.”

“You shouldn’t have spent the whole six weeks gallivanting then. I did tell you. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail!”

“I feel so tired already.”

“Ha! That’s nothing. All your friends have retired already. Maybe that’s telling you something?”

If you have children who were wobbly about going back to school and you were railing against the latest TikTok trend of making a ‘back to school box’, filled with beige but aesthetically pleasing items then it’s worth remembering that their teachers were feeling the same.

Usually, as soon as you have 30 small faces in front of you, some reflecting your fear, others mirroring your tiredness and one or two hanging, adoringly on your every word, it all comes back.

It didn’t.

I have forgotten how to teach. I’ve forgotten so much about teaching in six short weeks. I’ll make a list of the things I’d forgotten.

1. How noisy schools are.

2. How much children want to touch you.

3. How difficult it is to stay upright when a child sees you from across the playground and decides that they absolutely have to launch themselves at your knees.

4. How many acorns can be slipped into your coat pocket on playground duty.

5. How small my bladder is after 6 weeks of going to the toilet whenever I like.

6. How my room isn’t quite big enough to keep all the children who shouldn’t be together apart.

7. How I work is Satan’s Armpit. The rainforest has nothing on the humidity of my room.

8. How completely unable I am to say No

9. How many children fart after lunch

10. How hungry everyone is. (9.30 conversation through tears: I’ve missed my lunch)

11. How much cake is always on the staff room table.

12. How attractive murder Tv programmes or books are after a long day of teaching. 

13. How much work there is to do before and after you go to work. 

14. How  dangerous staples can be.

15. How honesty isn’t always the best policy. 

16. How competitive children are and how you can get them back on side with a challenge.

17. How good a weekend feels after a week at school, especially on NationalReadABookDay. (Isn’t that every day?)