People of Maldon you are 'quackers' and I love you.

Having lived in Maldon for 18 years I am a newcomer.  The original Maldonites all know each other, have webbed feet and marry their cousins.  They drink a lot of beer and do crazy things.  They are loud and ruddy cheeked and full of enthusiasm for life.  This is the town that has the mud race but that isn't all.  Some days the quay is filled with Morris Dancers, boaty-types doing strange things with knots and rigging or church people holding sunrise Easter services.

Maldon Greenjackets

Today, while walking the dog we stumbled upon the annual Sponsored Row in aid of the RNLI.   Over 100 boats race the three miles along the freezing river, using muscle power only.  Today, must have been exceptionally difficult as the wind was threatening to take us all back to Kansas and then we saw the Tin Man, Scarecrow and Lion.  Before the start they were having to row pretty hard just to stay still.

A perfect example of the craziness of the people of this town was hearing someone say, "Oh look, Simon's on his surfboard and look the wind is blowing him backwards!"

The canoes and Kayaks set off first (including Simon), started by three loud bangs that sent the birds flying up and back onto the water all three times.

All sorts of craft entered

The RNLI team looked very smart

Fancy dress teams

Canoes, Kayaks and Simon

Then it was the turn of the row boats and finally the Juniors.  There was only one entry in the Junior class, so we hope he won something but after he set off we know why he had to go last.  He was without doubt the fastest!

The junior catching and overtaking the other rowers

The winners were greeted by the Mayor, who was there in is ambulance, as the on-call first-aider.  We didn't wait for that because we wanted to get home before the rain, so I can't tell you who won but as we walked past the ambulance the Mayor's wife was fussing over the fact that his chain didn't look very good over the top of his fleece.

Although, I will always be a 'newbie' in this town it is a pleasure to be part of such a crazy place.

How I like thee Dr Google

Growing up I had a Nursery Rhyme book that I absolutely loved.  I still have it now and although it is battered and torn and the dog had a little chew of it when he was a puppy it is one of my most favourite things.  It has great pictures and is possibly responsible for much of my philosophy on life.  I truly believe that you shouldn't sit on walls unless all the king's horses and men are close by to put you together again, I think vinegar and brown paper can fix a bumped head and I do not like Doctors.
First of all there was Dr Foster, who was so stupid as to step in a puddle, get a bit wet and never go to Gloucester again.  That's no behaviour for a rational man.  I've been to Gloucester and it's worth going to again, even in the rain.  Then Miss Molly's doctor gave her a bill for the Dolly and all he did was tell her to put it to bed.  Finally, there was Dr Fell, which sums up how I feel about Doctors perfectly.

I do not like thee Dr Fell

The reason why I cannot tell

But this I know and know full well

I do not like thee Dr Fell.

Today, I went to see my doctor.  My voice has been missing since 12th December and that seems like quite a long time - even to me.  I believe that mostly we fix ourselves.  Voltaire said, "The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient, while nature cures the disease."  Apart from being told by the doctor that he knew my voice would come back, that it couldn't be anything serious because I don't smoke he didn't really give me any ideas how to make it better or even what might be causing it.  No, that's not true.  He told me that I had lost it because I didn't know how to use my diaphragm to support and project my voice. If any of my pupils read this they will be laughing at the idea that I've been hoisted by my favourite nag.  He said that he knew that I wasn't using my voice properly, "you see you are doing it now, you're forcing your voice," he said.  So I stopped forcing my voice and he said, "pardon, I can't help you if I can't hear you!"

When I got home the Long Suffering Husband said, "Have you Googled it?"  Now, I'm not someone who heads for Google at every niggle.  I don't want to scare myself.  I don't want my subconscious to start thinking there might be something actually wrong.  But in the face of any other useful help I thought I'd give it a go and so I've become a fan of Dr Google.  I typed in' causes of Dysphonia' and found that whatever the cause the first treatment should be 'conservative therapy'. This is to remove the possible causes; don't drink alcohol, don't smoke and remove stress.  These are easy I don't do any of them and it's school holidays so if there is stress I'm unaware of it's gone.  You should drink only water, again an easy one for me and then you have to not use your voice AT ALL for 3 days.  I had given up trying to write things down because my handwriting is so dreadful and the Long Suffering Husband has got to the age where his arms aren't long enough to read, but I'm going to give it another go. 

 I am not going to say a thing until Monday.  Then on Monday, I fully expect to open my mouth and find beautiful sounds come out.

Oh Santa, how you disappoint......

Since I discovered Twitter I also found a new way of entertaining myself on Boxing Day.  It's wrong, I know, to find the tweets of spoilt brats to be amusing but how can you not find the following gems captivating?

 "MY PARENTS GOT ME THE BLACK IPAD I WANTED THE WHITE ONE FUCK YOU CHRISTMAS IS RUINED,"  

"I HATE MY LIFE. CALL OF DUTY IS LAGGING BECAUSE MY STUPID PARENTS WON'T PAY FOR DECENT INTERNET. CHRISTMAS ISRUINED. KILL MYSELF," 

"I'm not even that excited for Christmas coz I'm not getting an x-box 360,"

"I didn't ask for much because I don't really need anything.  All I want is a car for crying out loud"

This is more than balanced out by the people who are happy with their gifts.  There are endless pictures of 'best Christmas presents',   One of my favourites was a dad who had managed to get the remote control Barbie car he bought for his daughter to bring him beer without getting up.

I was a little disappointed with Santa this year.  I had only asked him if he could find my voice and return it.  Maybe I've been on the naughty list because it's not back but luckily I have a brilliant sister (who thinks she's funny) who was able to get the next best thing.

Perfect present for someone who's lost their voice

The Long Suffering Husband is exceptionally good at Christmas presents.  I am not one of those unlucky women who post on facebook, "car tax is not a Christmas present!" or gets a dressing gown in size 22 (when they are a size 10 and gorgeous).  He always manages to buy me presents that I didn't know I even wanted or would be too frugal to buy for myself and he always buys me some beautiful underwear, which he puts in a red gift box (kept from year to year) for wrapping.  This year, when I opened that particular present my 14 year old son covered his eyes and said, "Oh no, it's the red box, tell me when it's over!"

This year's weather has caused me a permanent wet foot problem and my only waterproof boots rub and have made holes in all of my socks so the LSH chose to be a little more practical with the red box this year and I couldn't be more thrilled.

A box of socks (love a rhyme!)

I love socks.  You can never have too many pairs of pretty comfortable socks.  The dog also got some socks, which he will be very glad of when it next snows.

snowball paws - no more with snow socks.

I Believe

At this time of year articles and films question the existence of Santa Claus.  By all accounts, if you are over 10 years old then you don't believe in him any more unless you are a simpleton. From this logic I must be under ten.  That is the only possible explanation.

 Today, has been a Christmas film marathon day.  I've watched several versions of the Christmas Carol, The Santa Clause, The Grinch and am now watching Love Actually.  There are so many things we, as humans, believe in that have questionable proof.  In the Santa Clause the little boy says, "Have you ever seen a million bucks? ....No, well it doesn't mean it doesn't exist does it?"  The problem is that once we human's have decided to believe in something it becomes very difficult to change your position in the face of 'proof'.  As a psychologist, I could tell you that this is due to Cognitive Dissonance, which is that uncomfortable feeling you get when you realise you were wrong about something.  For many people, this discomfort is too much to bear and so they just choose to hang onto their old beliefs.  There is a study of a cult group who thought the world was going to end on a certain date and then when it didn't they went silent for a little while, shocked and traumatised but the end of the day they were giving interviews sticking to their assertion and inventing reasons why the world hadn't ended.

But if you decide to believe that Santa doesn't exist, then what about The Tooth Fairy, The Easter Bunny, God, or my childhood imaginary friend, Baby Cumby?  I know Baby Cumby was real, just because no one else could see him...........

If Santa doesn't exist then what has NORAD been doing all day?
http://www.noradsanta.org/en/track.html

And if Father Christmas is made up then what do the flying reindeer do with themselves?

Frank Church, war correspondent for the New York Sun during the American Civil War responded to an 8 year old girl called Virginia, who had written to ask if Santa Claus was real.

I couldn't have put it better myself.  

I believe in Santa Claus and when he flies over the Caribbean he will remember my letter and collect my holidaying voice for me. 

Christmas Cards

Since last year I have not become any more fond of Christmas Cards.  I still don't know what to do with the ones I get.  People make washing lines of them and even buy special pegs to hang them up with. When I was a child we had a Christmas card tree, which was a pop up cardboard contraption that you had to slot the cards into.  I remember it as something which the cards fell out of that gathered dust and just looked a bit stupid.  But rather than ranting on like a grumpy old woman this blog is devoted to what I'm doing instead and other people's Christmas Cards.

This year I have donated what I would have spent on cards to Breast Reconstruction Awareness.  This is a small group based at Broomfield Hospital.  They organise meetings for women due to have breast reconstruction and were fantastic support to a good friend when she was having treatment for breast cancer. Most of us can't begin to imagine or would want to imagine what goes through your mind when you are told that you have breast cancer.  Once you get over the, "Am I going to die?" question there are so many other things to worry about; drugs, operations, side-effects, how everyone else will cope.  If you have a good medical team then most of those questions can be answered but there will be one major question that you will need an answer to that they may not be able to help with, even if you have the courage to ask.  "How will I look afterwards?"  It might seem a shallow question but really who wants to look odd?  How wonderful would it be to be able to have a cup of tea and a biscuit with people who'd been there and were happy to show and tell?

Although, I hate giving and receiving cards I am always fascinated with the personalised cards given by the rich and famous, particularly politicians.  This year David Cameron gave a Christmas Card that should have had sent his PR people's head's spinning like something out of the exorcist.

It looks fairly wonderful, doesn't it?  A celebration of everything that was good in 2012.  The jubilee, the olympics and Sing Up (see the boy in the green cap).  Of course the current conservative government are responsible for all of that, aren't they?  They believe in the Queen and like her so much they invited her to a cabinet meeting today and gave her a set of coasters.  They made sure the Olympics went ahead and had their photographs taken with every winning athelete.  And they understand how important singing is in schools - don't they?  You may not have heard of Sing Up.  It was the most brilliant, fantastic, amazing FREE resource available to all schools funded by the government.  It was started in 2007 with an investment of £10 million, to introduce a national singing programme and the project was such a success that they guaranteed a further £10 million for each of the next 4 years until March 2011.  This scheme had managed to help and encourage 98% of primary schools to use singing on a daily basis.  Then in 2011, the new government had to decide whether they thought this was important.  Everyone was worried that funding would just stop but they agreed to fund Sing Up for another year.  £4 milliion is enough to run a project that was costing £10, surely?  I know times are supposed to be tough but when a project is so successful it does seem a little less than supportive to slash it's budget by 60%.  Sing Up is still going, it still tries to be brilliant but now you have to pay membership it has become a bit complicated and confusing.  Everyone is just a little worried that £4 million may be considered too much to spend next year on a music project when it's not even part of the new E-Bacc.  That would be such a shame.  Mr Cameron should take a long hard look at how proud that little boy is to be wearing his Sing Up cap before he makes any funding decisions.

Oh dear, that's a bit political and ranty.  The other politician's Christmas cards hopefully won't inspire such rage.

Ed Miliband

Prince Charles

Michael Gove's Christmas card (only joking!)

Nick Clegg

Obama

Boris Johnson

Sign Language.

Five days ago my voice took a holiday.  It said, "Excuse me but I think I've worked hard enough and I need a rest, so I'm off to the Bahamas.  It would be great if you came with me but if you insist on staying here and working, then you'll have to do it without me!"
"Fine," I said huffily, "You do know it's the busiest time of year?"
"Yes," said my voice, "and I don't care.  You've used and abused me for too long and I can't take it any more   I'm off."
I tried to argue, to cajole, bribe and persuade.  I promised to take more care of it in the future.  I promised to drink lots of water, to always warm up properly.  I promised never to try to raise my voice above a crowd of children.  Unfortunately, no one could hear me because true to his word my voice had gone (I do think my voice is a he - single minded enough to just do his own thing!)

The Long Suffering Husband struggles to hear me at the best of times,  "You never said!" being one of his favourite phrases but now he is finding communication with me almost impossible.  He can't seem to make up his mind between asking me to repeat myself and telling me not to speak because I need to rest my voice.

It feels so rude not to be able to speak.  Shopping without saying please or thank you just feels so wrong.  The fact that no sound appears hasn't stopped me trying to speak and I'm often joining in conversations without anyone hearing a word I'm saying.  The person who runs the sign language club said she could teach me a few appropriate signs but she'd also have to teach everyone that I talk to.

In the book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer the Grandfather is an elective mute.  I can't imagine choosing not to speak as talking is one of my favourite hobbies but this character has seen so many horrible things he chooses to say nothing.  He also struggles when he has to talk and carries a note book around with him, which I have started to do but that is also frustrating because I don't have good handwriting and I can't write as quickly as I think.  The grandfather has YES and NO tattooed on his hands to make for quick answering.

Whilst tattooing is a little bit too permanent for my liking but at the Long Suffering Husband's suggestion I have used a biro to make my own answer signs.  The beauty of it is that it also incorporates a universally understood sign.

So when the LSH next asks me if I want a cup of tea I can answer:

And when he asks me if I've done the ironing I can answer:

PERFECT!

A music teacher's nightmare

You wake up in a cold sweat, breathing heavily with a sensation that an anxious elephant is sitting on your chest.  What could possibly be wrong?  Was that real or was it a dream?  Did it happen or even worse is it a prophecy of what is soon to happen?

That happened to me last night.  For hours I had been dreaming about teaching KS1 children to accompany Away in a Manger with percussion instruments.  I had one group who were meant to play the triangle on the first beat of the bar, while the second group were to play maracas on the second and third beats.  Six year olds find three beats in the bar tricky. Nearly all the music they have heard has 4 beats with a drummer banging out the beat - or a drum machine giving a mixture of beats.

Away in the Manger is even more difficult because it has an anacrusis (or upbeat).  Over and over again the dream children played in the wrong places.  They just couldn't get it.  Finally, it was concert day and I was ready, they were ready.  They'd practised until my ears hurt.  Just as the concert was about to start and I would find out if these nightmarish children had finally got it I woke up.  

The clock on my bedside was flashing:

Spooky.

If that nightmare hadn't been difficult enough I knew that in my kitchen another nightmare was waiting for me.  The kind of nightmare that can only be had by primary school music teachers. For two hours before going to bed I had been wrestling with coconuts.  The Long Suffering Husband had been sent into the shed with 4 whole coconuts and a selection of power tools to drain the milk out and cut the shells into perfect halves.  Then it was my turn to remove all the flesh.  After about two hours I gave up, knowing that I still had another 2 to do in the morning. I did wonder if this was above and beyond the call of duty but you can't have a nativity without donkeys and you can't have donkey noises without coconut shells and coconut shells break when they are dropped.

After all this I still had some lessons to plan.  The coconut shells and a video a colleague had posted on facebook had got me thinking about making instruments.  Then thirst took over, so I poured out my drink in different glasses and played Away in a Manger. 

 I wonder if using wine rather than coke would have given me a better night's sleep.