A Great Shower

I like to have a shower before bed, and the night I arrived here I had a great one. I use the family bathroom along with the girls. There is a bath and a separate shower cubicle.

The cubicle is large enough for me to bend down to clean my feet, the ceiling is high enough so I can stand up straight, the shower head is not blocked with limescale, the water pressure ranges from strong to stronger, the temperature is however hot I like it, and however long a shower I have, the hot water has never run out. An altogether wonderful shower!

As you can see from my comments I've put up with some drastic showers throughout the years.

One of the more interesting ones was my shower in Kuwait. The cold water tank for the apartment building was situated on the roof as were all the other tanks on all the other buildings in the city. During the months from April to November, this tank would get hot with temperatures ranging from about 28 C (82 F) in April to over 40 C (104 F) in August, then down to 25 C (77 F) in November.

So during those months I didn't turn the hot water on and used my hot water tank as my cold water supply because hot water came out of my cold tap. I was never in Kuwait between late June to late August, along with half the population - all those who could afford it vacated the country.

In the winter my hot water tank was not quite large enough to sustain the length of shower I desired, so I enjoyed going to the Hilton Resort Beach Club at the weekend.

In January the temperature can get as low as 9 C (48 F) but the swimming pool was always heated. It felt wonderfully hot on cool skin and of course no-one else used the pool much in the winter. Actually even when the weather got warmer it was rarely used in the early evening, which was usually the time I was there. The Hilton had two pools and I, preferring privacy when not wearing many clothes, would go to the one designed for children and nannies. You had to walk a long way from the car park, which put many people off. The main pool had a bar on the poolside and waiters to bring food, all of which I didn't care for.

I would swim for half an hour around the edge of the pool, so no stopping, and then I would float on my back just relaxing and gazing at the stars.

The other advantage of the children's pool was that the changing rooms were just at the pool edge so there was not much time in the cool air before being under a lovely hot shower. I used to stay so long in that shower that on a cool day I was glowing warm all the way back to the car.

I went to the beach throughout the winter months at the weekend. It was my favourite activity to sit on a lounger on a deserted beach with my knitting, crochet, sewing or a book, listening to my ipod or the waves of the calm Persian Gulf lapping on the shore, then go for a swim when the sun went down at 5pm. It was often over 16 C (60 F) and that to a Brit is a pleasantly warm day. I much prefer to keep my clothes on anyway so I was quite happy. As the temperature climbed higher moving into spring, the beach would have more people on it and I would sit with friends. And when it got too hot for me to be comfortable outside, the beach was fairly packed and it was difficult to find a lounger. By May, I stopped going, choosing to return in October.

There are several public, free beaches in Kuwait, but of course woman cannot swim there. So you see on hot days, men and boys in swimming trunks having a wonderful time in the waves whilst the women, dressed in heat absorbing black from head to toe, sit at the water's edge watching.

A Day in the Life

I was late to bed last night despite good intentions of having more sleep. Subsequently late up in the morning. Not enough time to do all my devotions, but never mind, I'll finish them after taking the girls to school.

But oh no! Youngest girl is ill and not going to school, so Mum is going to take Oldest to school and Youngest gets up and dressed and has a tantrum because she can't find the movie the Velveteen Rabbit on TV. Mum promises to print out some rabbit colouring pictures and come back to give them to her.

I ask Oldest to give me a lesson in how to work the TV and she finds a Good Witches program on TV and insists Youngest wants to watch it.

After Mum and Oldest depart, Youngest finds her colouring pages of boys from yesterday and puts stickers on them, then starts colouring the girl pictures that mum printed for Sunshine. I switch off the TV and she doesn't notice. We talk about the pictures she's colouring. The phone rings. it's Mum wanting to know what size shoes I wear. Dad, in China, wants to know. I add, in a panic that I have wide feet (it's very difficult for me to find comfy footwear and I wouldn't dream of buying anything without having tried them on or have the option of returning. I actually only buy a tiny fraction of shoes I try on.) Mum assures me the footware under consideration is certainly wide. I think "What is she referring to? Are they yetti boots?" Youngest asks about the rabbit pictures and is told mum is choosing them now.

She then tidies up all the pens, crayons, papers etc without any prompting from me.

She goes upstairs and shins up the door post and looks like she is going to slide down the bannisters.

I'm thinking "Should I encourage this activity. I know Mum would tell her to not do it if she was home. However, I encouraged my own girls to slide down the bannisters under supervision. I remember when they had a friend to play and they all slid down the bannisters, the mother of the girl was totally shocked that I would allow such a thing!"

Fortunately I didn't have to make a decision, because she finds her Woody doll and makes him slide down instead. I catch him at the bottom. Woody is wonderful, he only rubs his head and gets up again when he falls on his head. He has a cloth body with plastic head and hands and so it's easy to make him gesticulate with his hands whilst he is talking. He can even find his hat and put it back on his head again. He seems to enjoy sliding down the bannisters, well, at least he doesn't complain. Well, his talking facility has been curtailed due to overuse so he has to speak through Patricia.

She says she has Buzz Lightyear and so up we go to the spare room where all her possessions have been dumped and search through a pile of character toys. (Many of the toys she has are characters from films.) Buzz can speak for himself but only has a few phrases. I tell her "I don't want to catch him at the bottom of the banisters. He's so hard, he'll hurt me." She also has the girl cowboy character. Youngest gives her a name, but the problem is I can't remember the character's name, from when i saw it at school once as an end-of-term treat for the year group, and can't understand Youngest's pronunciation.

She wants to watch the DVD and finds, amongst an enormous amount of discs, Toy Story 2, which I haven't seen. She knows how to put the DVD into the machine, making sure she breathes on the disc before rubbing it against her jeans, but neither of us know how to get it showing onto the enormous flat screen TV. The phone rings and I suggest she answers it because I think it's her mum. It is. Youngest asks about the pictures and Mum tells her she's printing them now. I ask her how to get the DVD playing on the screen. So we get it going and she immediately goes off to the loo. When she comes out she goes into the kitchen for a yoghurt.

Meanwhile I've paused the DVD for her and check what she's doing in the kitchen and prevent another yoghurt pot from being consumed, offering a box of food I prepared yesterday. Youngest rarely chooses any protein to eat and there is a plethora of carbohydrate snacks in the house. So in the box is a chicken leg, a sausage, some sausage rolls and baby sweet-corn. I cooked them yesterday whilst the fish pie was being cooked. She chooses the sausage rolls but wants them nuked in the microwave.

Back in the lounge she wants to phone her mum to find out what's happening to the rabbit pictures. She doesn't know how to use the phone and so I get the phone number and call out the numbers so she can press the keys. I'm not sure if it's the particular font or she cannot read many numbers but I had to show her where the numbers were or she would have pressed the wrong keys. Mum assures her she's just about to go out the door and will be there soon.

Youngest sits down with the enormous box of Barbies and Kens to play with and I turn off the DVD without a murmur from her. She gets out the camper van and the horse. The horse is interesting because it walks and clops and neighs. At my prompting she finds the Barbie with loose hips that can sit on the horse and it walks as far as it can in between obstacles. Woody's legs prove too long to sit comfortably and the horse does not go well for this rider.

I find a Barbie with hair down to her feet that's not surprisingly tangled. I ask for a brush, but there's none to be found. So I go up to Mum's room to get her brush. Youngest is so shocked that I'm using her mum's brush that she decides to phone her to 'tell on me'. She gets the phone and pretends to phone, and even speaks. I tell her "Your mum will see I'm using her brush when she comes with the pictures so you'll see what she says then."

I enjoy brushing all the Barbies' hair and clothing them whilst she plays with Woody, the horse and camper van. I remember playing with similar dolls when I was young. My sister and I would style the hair and dress each doll - we may have had 3 between us and then I would be done. This would upset my sister because in her mind, that part was the preliminary to actually playing with the dolls and I wasn't interested in doing that.

Mum arrives with my wages, the colouring pictures and a laptop with the Velveteen Rabbit downloaded onto it. Youngest wants to go back to the office with her. Mum tells her "It won't be any fun because people will be working and not able to give you attention. Anyway Patricia will be wanting to go get her plants now, so you better get ready. I'll brush your hair."

I say "I wanted to brush her hair before, but she told me she wasn't going anywhere, so didn't need it brushed."

Mum replies" I have to wrestle it into shape by spraying stuff on and drying it."

I grab the brush, taking out the mounds of Barbie hair trapped in it and tell her about Youngest's reaction to my using it. (I would be better to stop talking about the child to her mother. It's not respectful to the child and she doesn't like it, but it's such a habit, it's not proving easy to change.)

It's news to me that I want to go out. Well, actually I do want to go get plants today, but I thought the child was ill and so didn't want to suggest taking her. I was actually just about to make some food for me, but youngest is getting on shoes, having had her hair brushed. Emma obviously doesn't want to leave her and it takes her quite a while to get out of the door.

On the short journey to the town centre we ask Archangel Michael for protection in a mantra that Youngest is now joining in with. Then she asks to sing the Thank You song so we spend the rest of the journey thanking God for everything she can think of. Youngest has brought the rabbit colouring sheets and a tub of crayons, and unfortunately keeps wanting me to see the pictures as she finishes them. I see a car park but no entrance to it and drive round the whole shopping area before finding the entrance to the multi-story car park. I enter with trepidation. I was actually trying to avoid this place, due to the size of the car. Amazingly I manage to negotiate the whole in, park and out procedure with no scrapes and only a little embarrassment as I try to exit the parking space whilst someone waits for it.

Mum had given Youngest a £20 note to spend on a plant and pens and whatever she wanted apart from clothes. "Because you've got enough of those and Daddy will be bringing far too many things back with him from China on Monday." She is very compliant whilst we are out, which is a surprise to me, even when I explain she doesn't have enough money for everything that her eye alights upon. She gets a plant for herself, a pot of chrysanthemums for her mum, a Winnie-the-Pooh ceramic money box to paint, a packet of everything she needs to create a wooden spoon family, and a create-you-own-fairy-doll set for her sister. It was my suggestion she gets something for her sister because I knew she'd be jealous otherwise.

Back home she eats the chicken and sausage after nuking them, and I make some food for myself, but don't have time to eat it. She starts to paint her Pooh, but it's time to go get Oldest from school.

We arrive just in time and the only parking space to be found is outside the parent's office. On the short walk to the office, I notice Oldest being out of sorts and I ask her what the matter is. She won't say, so I suggest she's jealous of her sister, 'cos she's been home all day. She's reluctant to admit it until I tell her it's OK 'cos it's normal. She brightens up after that, happy to have her feelings validated. Of course we visit mum as we do every day at this time and there's the usual "Can I stay at the office?" question. But on mention of the present awaiting her at home, Oldest changes her mind and is eager to go.

Arriving at home Oldest enthusiastically starts creating her fairy doll whilst still in her coat! Youngest opens her wooden spoon family package and asks for help. "I'm going to be in the kitchen having something to eat and a cup of tea, so if you want help, why don't you come into the kitchen?"

Neither girl moves so I go and have a break, suddenly feeling tired. Youngest comes in and continues painting her Pooh money box.

She wants two fried eggs on bread and waits until I finish eating before climbing onto the counter so she can crack the egg in the pan. Her mother won't let her do this because she might get shell in the pan, but I think that if she does, she'll learn to do better next time. Yesterday she managed to break both yolks but today they were intact. She even managed to transfer it unbroken to her bread!

Oldest had her chicken, sausage and sweetcorn but gave the sausage rolls to Youngest. Of course they had to all be nuked.

Oldest had asked for help in the beginning, but then said "I've got the hang of it."

Youngest wanted the Velveteen Rabbit to play through the TV, but I don't know how to do that because Emma couldn't tell me because she didn't know. Youngest then chooses the TV over the Velveteen Rabbit and is excited to see the film Bolt on the Disney channel.

Oldest wants help to put the hair on her fairy doll like in the picture, but I can't work out how to do it. She works out her own way and it's very good; just like the picture. Youngest wants help to make a wooden spoon person but I don't do much because I'm mesmerised by the TV. She makes a really good person after all with no help.

A drama ensues when Oldest alerts me to the fact that one of the kittens is eating her chicken bone. I leap into action and try and get the bone from him as it's dangerous for cats to eat them, due to it splintering easily. The cat has his jaws firmly on the bone and, not wanting to get bitten, I decide to not force his jaws apart but shake him and he lets me remove the object. Youngest, whose kitten it is, is upset by the picture of me shaking the cat and rushes upstairs shouting at me. I can't find her. She's good at hiding, so I call to her reassuring her the cat was OK and I wasn't harming him, but trying to help him. I leave her to calm down on her own and go to wash the dishes.

They ask to go outside so I suggest they tidy up the lounge. They do a good job. I insist they put warm coats on and they have fun bouncing on the enormous (of course), trampoline. They also have a climbing and swing set that they

availed themselves of this too. Mum comes home to find me trying to persuade Youngest to take her roller skates off whist on the tramploine.

Phew! I hand over responsibility.

All This Stuff!

I'm wondering what's in me that's causing me to live in another house where people have loads of 'stuff'. Hmm, maybe a sign that I have loads of 'stuff' to transmute?

This house has 4 rooms upstairs, designed to be bedrooms. Three of them have beds, a chests of drawers and wardrobes. The girl's bedrooms have a double wardrobe in each and the parents have two double wardrobes. There is another room that doesn't have a bed in - no room for a bed. It has three double wardrobes and 4 chest of drawers all full and spilling over. There are piles of clothes on each chest and in the middle of the room.

A scene on Monday morning getting ready for school.

Emma to youngest daughter, "Which jacket do you want to wear?"

Daughter, 'The brown one."

"This one?" says Emma reaching over a pile of clothes into a wardrobe packed with small coats. She pulls out an imitation fur lined dark brown leather bomber jacket.

"No, the other brown one." And out comes another bomber jacket. This time lined with thinner material and a lighter brown. This is a perfect jacket for her life as a pretend boy. She puts it over her school uniform of black trousers, white shirt and black knitted, zipped jacket.

Emma turned to me. "She has loads of clothes but only wears a few favourites over again."

"Sensible girl." I thought. "This five-year-old's using her own strategy to not get overwhelmed."

Emma looks gorgeous every day, wearing beautiful clothes to work. So far she's worn understated elegant clothes in neutral colours of the earth. The policy in this house is to only iron clothes before wearing, because they just get messed up when stored ironed. So it's up early for her each day to get her clothes looking immaculate. Unusually, Craig does the ironing when he's home. "But he doesn't do anything else," she said "apart from maybe make some porridge." So Emma makes the packed lunches.

The kitchen cupboards are crammed with food, and so is the fridge and the two freezers. And they still shop every few days for food!

This is such a repeat of the house in America I was living in, but these people don't have the excuse of stocking up for a possible hurricane.

Emma knows she's a shop-a-holic and wondered out loud what the hole was she was trying to fill with all this shopping. I thought that was very perceptive of her to realise she was trying to fill a hole. She said "It's probably because we've been held up and not able to expand the business for so long."

I must analyse those dreams I've been writing down. Maybe they'll give me a clue as to why I'm repeating the living situation. Things have got a little better in my bedroom though, because the only things that are clutter in this room are the many tiny shoes under the bed that the youngest doesn't wear. Much improvement on the piles of boxes, and other junk higher than me that I had in the other place. Oh, and at my friend's house that I stayed in, between housekeeping jobs, I also stayed in a room full of junk. Sigh.

So if anyone reading this has any clues for me I'm very willing to consider your views.

First Day, New Job

After a long weekend of 'settling in'. I started my job as Housekeeper/Nanny-soon-to-be-Governess.

The mother is giving us a week to get to know each other before she takes the youngest out of school. Just in case the child changes her mind.

Over the weekend I moved into the youngest child's room. Her things were dumped into the spare (storage) room. She sleeps in her parents bed so they thought it would work, but of course she is used to coming into her room when she wakes at the weekend. And now she doesn't have anywhere she can call her own. This is only a temporary arrangement until the father gets back from China on the 8th March and sorts out the room downstairs for me. At present it has a running and rowing machine and a sauna in it. And now it has my bicycle in there too because the garage needs sorting out before that goes away. That room isn't as big as it sounds. The rowing machine does not have it's own floor space.

So I got to know the girls a little. None of the doors in the house are ever closed apart from (presumably) when the adults go to the toilet, so the closed door to my room didn't signify to the girls. The eldest girl did knock each time she wanted to come in but always expected entry, and the youngest just opened the door and walked in. The mother wanted me to explain that I wasn't always available to them because, she said they wouldn't take any notice of her.

So how do I explain to a 5 year old that I want some privacy without making her feel rejected?

The eldest girl, aged nine, I'll call Sunshine in this blog. She chose it for her blog name when I talked about her starting a blog, but she could easily be called Princess.

The youngest I could call Boy, because she wants to be one, or Spiderman because she's keen on him, or in fact any aggressive adventure hero. I could call her Monkey because she loves climbing and is full of energy. Or I could stick to the meteorological theme and call her Storm because she is so forceful. But all those names have a negative connotation in my mind and I don't want to label her negatively. I'm wondering what her Higher Self would like me to call her? Well, as I haven't got that answer yet I'll not call her anything until I'm clear what to do.

Today I didn't have the hours of school to myself as the mother, who'll I'll call Emma, predicted because Sunshine, who was not too well all weekend had nearly vomited on Sunday night so she stayed off school.

She watched a DVD in her parents bed first thing. (She doesn't sleep much in her bed either.) And then I read her some of Born to Run by Micheal Murpogo about a greyhound dog. I got it out of the library on Saturday using one of the girl's tickets. We got up to page 43 when I sensed she'd had enough. I wondered how we could remember the number and suggested we visualised the 4 being a door. Sunshine suggested the 3 was lips and so we thought the lips could be kissing the door. In the evening when she was recounting her day to her mum, she remembered the page number and mimed kissing a door.

Then she wanted to look at a new book she's got on the human body. We put the height chart poster up and measured her foot, hand and height, against it. Then she chose certain pages to look at in the book.

I then went downstairs to do my laundry and started ironing. She asked to iron and so, with a little trepidation on my part, she ironed several items of clothing. She then had something to eat and played with the kittens.

She was feeling a little better so we decided to go to the garden centre because I wanted to get a Boston Fern plant to purify the air in my room. The carpet was still giving off formaldehyde and the Boston Fern is the best plant to purify that substance. The rest of the house of course has the same problem but it isn't so apparent as the other doors are all kept open. I bought a Peace Lily on Saturday but even with the window permenantly open, I was still waking up with achy muscles, a sure sign in my body of toxicity. The Peace Lily possess half the efficiency of the Boston Fern in the formaldehyde transmutation.

The car seat was in Emma's car so we visited her at work and transferred it to the Jeep, which they've given me to drive. This is another temporary situation. When the father, I'll call him Craig, comes back he's going to sell the tiny Ka and the enormous Jeep and get a medium sized car. I will be more comfortable with that. Driving a large vehicle is fine in the USA with the wider roads and larger parking spaces but it's not so easy in Britain. Also a more economical car will be easier on my pocket when I use it for private trips at weekends.

I haven't found the Tom Tom SAT NAV to be very good. On Sunday, it tried very hard to get me to go though a pedestrian walkway. It never gave up the fight until I reprogrammed it to go home. Two community police officers were very helpful. This afternoon it wanted to take me on quite the wrong route to the garden centre. I know it was the wrong route because after the walkway fiasco I bought a map. Well, I wasn't much better than the SAT NAV and I went on a long detour of villages before we eventually arrived at the garden centre. Unfortunately the stock had run down very low due to the bad weather and so I bought all the Boston Ferns they had; 3 tiny pots, and a tiny ivy.

Sunshine's money was burning a hole in her purse and she bought two pots of Primulas.

Arriving back at Corby we were in time to pick up younger sister from school, and called into the office again for the other car seat. Arriving at school, Sunshine started coughing again, and I told her that she didn't have to be ill to stay off school. She could just tell her mother she wanted to be home-schooled. But she said she would miss her friends and wasn't convinced that having them home to play after school would work. so, maybe her mum's right and she won't be joining us for education at home.

Back home the youngest helped make fried egg on bread for herself. Then the girls made Turkey Korma under my direction. Sunshine laid the table very fancy-like and changed into a posh party dress. this was a special occasion as they don't usually eat at the table. She asked me if I had a dress, and on getting a negative answer asked me if I had anything smarter to change into. I did, so I did.

So it was into the lounge for a game of football with the youngest until Emma came home.

Earlier in the day Sunshine was asking if what we were doing would be what we'd do if I home-schooled her. Of course I said yes, and she insisted in labelling what we had done with school subjects. She couldn't think what lesson the ironing would go into so I assured her that there was much more to life than school subjects.

On the way home we made up many different verses to the song 'Thank You Lord for this Fine Day'. I suppose you could call that Music and Religious education.

At the dinner table Sunshine surprised her mother because she wanted to sing that prayer she had learned before we ate, so we sang "Thank You Lord for this Fine Food". Well, the parents did advertise for a person who shared their faith.

Saturday Nights

Every Saturday I came home from work, ate the warmed up meal that my family had eaten for lunch, and got ready for my Saturday night out. I went out every Saturday whether I had a boyfriend or not. Well, how was I going to get another one if I didn't go out? There was one time my father told me "You I can't go out wearing that." I couldn't see the problem so I'm glad I had a father who cared enough to put his foot down.

Someone in my town of Aylesbury was very enterprising and booked up-and-coming bands to play every other Saturday night at the Assembly Rooms and this event was called Friars. He would book the band before they were famous, so they were cheap, and by the time they played, they'd sometimes have their first record out and be on TV. It was very popular and I attended each fortnight. Whilst I was still too young to go, my brother went to see David Bowie. My mother was disgusted that my brother would want to go see a man who wore makeup. I remember seeing Wizard (a few times) and Mot the Hoople, but I can't remember the names of others although I think I saw the group that Brian Ferry was in (or was that Mot the Hoople?)

It was the sort of small town venue where, each time you went you saw many of the people you knew, so the times when I was boy-friendless, I would just go on my own. When I got to know some of the lads from the boys' school at our after-school ballroom dancing lessons, I would do some ballroom dancing with them at Friars for a laugh. I went out with a guy who created the posters for a while. They were hippy-like and very curly black and white line drawings and just the right style for the time. I don't know whether he got paid (he was still at school) but he got free tickets.

The entrance fee was 50 pence and bus fare about 20p, so I didn't have much money to buy drinks. I would buy a drink called Bitter Lemon and that would last me all night, but I would ask people if I could taste their drinks, so I got quite merry. I would always have to leave before the end, because my last bus went at about 11:30 pm.

On the Saturdays when Friars wasn't on, the only places to go were the pubs or an occasional disco at the Methodist youth club. I have a feeling the actual youth club night was not a Saturday. I went there a few times.

One of the misfits I went around with at school sometimes, was called Heather. She was the ugliest girl I've ever seen, but she wasn't one of those people who were ugly on the outside but beautiful inside. No, she wasn't particularly nice there either. I was a little reticent to walk outside of school with her but I consoled myself with the thought that by contrast to her I must look lovely.

She went to the youth club and met up with Graham who went to the boy's school. He was the ugliest boy I'd ever seen and they started going out with each other. They were so happy together and I was glad she had found someone, if a little incredulous. They soon got engaged and I wonder what their children look like.

I enjoyed the discos. They were much more fun than going to a night-club because we knew many of the people there.

There were two pubs that I frequented in Aylesbury. One was the Bell. Like all the pubs around the market square, it was old with a black-and-white exterior and low beams inside. I enjoyed going to that place with a group of people but it wasn't a place I felt comfortable going to on my own because as well as us school kids there were older people. However, I felt very at home at the Dark Lantern. It wasn't as plush as the Bell as it had wooden benches and stone flagged floors, but the atmosphere was friendly. The barmaid was the mother of the boy who created the posters for Friars and so I was careful to stick to buying just bitter lemon drinks. Looking back I am amazed I liked the place because it was a centre for drug dealing and many of the people there were stoned. I was very exuberant at that time, and would dance (on my own, with no-one else dancing) to the music. I didn't feel shy. It was amazing that all the times I frequented that place, no-one ever approached me to sell me drugs. I was a little miffed that I couldn't put into practice saying 'No'.

I sometimes went to the Dark Lantern during lunchtimes. When someone in my group at school said they were going up to the library we would say. "Are you going to the library or the 'library'?" The 'library', of course, was the Dark Lantern.

Those were the happy Saturday nights, but there were a few unhappy ones as I recall. The ones when I didn't have a boyfriend but all the girls I knew did. The ones where I walked the streets, not the pavements, but the middle of the road, feeling self pity and fed up with being alone. Each Sunday morning my mother always asked how I had enjoyed myself and I snapped at her because of course I hadn't enjoyed myself at all and felt bad because I didn't want to admit t to her.

Going to sleep on Saturday night was usually painful. I mean physically painful, whether or not I'd had a good time. This was because on closing my eyes the residue from the cigarette smoke that was stuck to my eyeballs stung my eyelids. However sometimes I didn't notice because as soon as I sat on my bed I fell asleep and woke up a few hours later still in my clothes with dirty teeth. Today in Britain the pubs are all smoke free by law but I never go into them now.

Saturday Job

I started my first job on my 15th Birthday because that was the minimum legal age to work. My birthday fell on a Saturday that year and I had lined myself up with a Saturday job working at Boots the Chemist. (It's a drug store for my American readers.)

The shop was laid out differently than it is today with a cash till at the end of each island of shelves. I was given the soap and shampoo section. Being surrounded by so much soap made me sneeze. I would help anyone who needed it; finding the soap they required and take the money at the till. Those were the days of lots of shop staff and you could always find someone to help you.

Someone paid me with a £50 note and as I'd never seen one before, I doubted it was real money. The customer assured me it was, because he had just been paid with it. I felt foolish. Many years later I remember holding a £50 note that was part of a large amount that I'd got from the bank to pay for a car, and I said "I've never held a £50 note before in my life!" But then I recalled the incident at Boots and realised that I didn't consider the money I handled in that job to be real money because it didn't belong to me.

I was relieved a few weeks later to be 'promoted' to the chemist counter because that soap really irritated my nose. It was prestigious to be on the chemist counter because it was a responsible job. People would come and ask advice about what they could take for certain ailments. I just love giving advice and so I was in my element. Behind the counter there were lots of little drawers full of packets, jars and bottles of pills and creams. They were in alphabetical order. It didn't take me long to know where everything was and what it was for.

Of course the potions we sold were all 'over-the-counter' medicines and at one end was the pharmacy. Our job was also to take the prescriptions from the customers and process them for the pharmacist to fill.

At the pharmacy end there was also a box with little packets of condoms in. Durex was the brand name and I never heard the word condom mentioned. The chemist counter was not the official counter for condoms. That was the surgical counter in another part of the shop. However, some people would ask at our counter for them and the senior shop assistant, Mrs Kemp, told me that they were there to save embarrassment to the customer. I had no idea what these things were or what they were used for. I found out about this box when a customer asked me for a packet of Durex. I had not seen the name Durex in any of the drawers or on the display counter so I called to Mrs Kemp, who was usually at the Pharmacist end of the counter, "Where's the Durex?" She rushed up to me with the box, sold a packet to the customer and in a hushed tone told me where the box was kept.

My father told me he was friendly with the senior assistant on the surgical counter because he talked with her each time he went in. I wondered why he would frequent that counter. I hadn't noticed him using lots of Elastoplasts (Band Aids) when he was shaving. And I also wondered why he didn't ask me to get them with my discount on Saturdays. (I'm glad he didn't.)

I enjoyed working on Saturdays. I got £1.50 a day. My mum told me, "Now you're earning money you can pay for your toiletries and clothes." Boots was next to the market stalls and my first purchase was a little burnt orange velour jacket that zipped up. It cost £1 and was unlined and didn't keep me warm at all but it looked as if it might and it was stylish and modern. I was proud of that jacket because the clothes my mother bought me were definitely not stylish.

I worked on that counter each Saturday for three years. I sometimes worked in the school holidays too but preferred Saturdays because they were busier. It was quite a different job during the week. There was the stocking of the shelves and drawers, cleaning the counters and serving the odd customer should they wander in. I remember replenishing the counter when a customer came up wanting to be served and I was irritated at the interruption to my work, when I realised that if there were no customers, I wouldn't have a job. The days, being a slower pace would drag along and somehow I felt more tired. We would pull out a drawer and perch on the edge to take the weight off our feet - very uncomfortable. Occasionally someone would trap a packet of glucose sweets in a drawer to break it open. "Oh dear, we can't sell that now. Well, we may as well eat some."

During my last year there I was given charge of the gift vouchers which had been put at the far end of the chemist counter to the pharmacy. I was the chief seller and had to cash up the till each Saturday, but still serve the medicines. After doing this a few months the manager, who was the father of a girl in my class, told me that some company investigators were coming that day and wanted to interview me. "Someone's been stealing gift vouchers over a period of time. I don't think you've done it but you've been at work each time it's happened. So I have to let them interview you. I'm very sorry." I hadn't stole them, but I thought of the sweets I'd eaten and didn't feel very honest.

The grilling was terrible. There were three of them, one woman and two men. They told me repeatedly to confess, or it would be much worse for me later. I cried. A permanent member of staff from my counter gave me a cup of tea in the canteen and told me not to let anyone see me crying.

Near the end of the day the manager came to me and told me that Roseanne had confessed. She was based across the isle on the diabetics counter and often popped over to help out selling gift vouchers if we were all busy.

A few months later I was in the magistrates court with a group from school as part of a general studies class. The first case was a guy who drove with no bumper (fender) on his car to take his wife to her nursing job at an unearthly hour in the morning. He was acquitted with a warning. The second was Roseanne accused of stealing the gift vouchers! I was so shocked at the coincidence of this that I don't recall many details apart from her plea that she gave them to her poor family.

Davey

Davey was still my boyfriend when my 15th birthday came around. He gave me a lovely watch. It wasn't expensive but I liked it and I needed a watch at the time. However my mum told me to give it him back.

She had this idea that if he gave me a present then he would expect 'favours'. I couldn't get her to understand that this wasn't the case, that he was giving me a present because it was my birthday and nothing more. So I gave it back and explained to him what she said. I was so embarrassed, and sad to see a perfectly good watch go back to the shop.

We didn't always stay with the group. Sometimes we would walk into the local small town and go to a pub there. One day Davey said to me "The landlord keeps looking at you. Why don't you smoke a cigarette, it will make you look older." Well, my parents both smoked and I hated the things. Davey smoked but I wish he didn't. I really didn't want to smoke. He lit a cigarette and gave it to me. The landlord was probably amused at the scene with me holding this lighted stick, feeling self-conscious, trying to put it to my lips but not being able to get it nearer than 6 inches. So I just sat there with the cigarette between my fingers while it burned down and tried to expertly flick the ash into the ashtray. I never went through that charade again.

Phyllis Briggs lived in my village and she had been in my class at Primary School. She would often make some remark which made me feel awful and I was upset when we ended up at the same secondary school. For the first few years she was in a different class but by age 14 we were in the same class again.

Before Davey started going out with me, he went out with another girl in my class called Lindsey Brown. I think she was one of the girls I sat with at lunch, who introduced me to the Sunday club. There was an advert on Television at the time for Hovis bread which had the slogan "Don't say Brown, say Hovis." So Phyllis Briggs, called her Hovis and would often quote the slogan as she walked by.

Lindsey happened to be away on holiday with her family the day I met Davey and, I didn't know this but, they were still a 'couple' before she went away. Of course she was upset when she got back and found she'd lost her boyfriend to me. It's funny that Phyllis Briggs, who up 'til then had shown no affection for me whatsoever, sided with me in the 'discussions' about it at school. I'm sure it was because she felt more affinity with me than with Lindsey, because of our shared primary years.

One Sunday afternoon I couldn't find Davey anywhere and so I asked around to see if anyone had seen him. One guy said "I saw him walking down the road with a blond Scottish girl." I laughed, not believing him, but sure enough it was true.

He came to me an hour later saying we were finished because he was getting married. The girl had come to visit him because she was pregnant and he was the father. This was a bit of a shock because he had been quite a gentleman with me, probably because of my age.

So that was the end of my first boyfriend and my last visit to the Sunday afternoon club. I was ready to move onto going out on Saturday nights.

The Sunday Club

Reading about John Holt's observations on the school system has reminded me of my own schooldays.

I had the opposite view of school to everyone I knew. I loved the lessons but disliked the playtimes (recess). I enjoyed learning and found many of the lessons interesting, except when I had to hear a child, who was a slow reader, read. I was chosen for this task because I was a fluent reader, but I found listening to children struggling to read boring a tedious. Funny that I then went on to become a teacher (I didn't have the same view of hearing readers later in life fortunately.) I also remember feeling sorry for the teacher when I was 11 years old who had to hear the struggling readers every day, because these were the smelly kids and the teacher had to spend time being in close proximity to them.

I didn't like the playtimes because I didn't fit in with any popular group and didn't want to be with the other misfits. However, when I was a teenager at the girls school I attended, I decided that being with the misfit group was better than being on my own. It was very painful at lunchtimes because I felt the need to be sitting next to others so I wouldn't stand out as being on my own, so I found a group of girls whose parents were in the RAF and so lived on the nearby RAF station. They of course didn't fit in with any of the other girls because they moved schools so often, and had different life experiences.

I was 14 and they talked about the Sunday afternoon club they all went to on the station. I lived one and a half miles from it, a long walk with no public transport along the route. They invited me to go and so my dad took me in the car and I would call him when I wanted picking up 'cos the group would be going to see a film on the site after the club.

This was the first time I was exposed to so many males, although there weren't more than 15 or so, and there were about 10 girls. We drank coke and played records and some played pool and one guy kissed me. I didn't think much of it (and neither did he I learned later, giving me a bad report, to which my boyfriend Davey told me he refuted).

Davey was 18 like all the other lads and I was very impressed. He was from Scotland and we paired up and when we kissed it didn't come as such a surprise and I'm a quick learner so it was very satisfactory for both of us.

We all went to the pub after the club. I'd never been in a pub before, and didn't know what drink to order, but I remember my mother drinking a larger and lime when we went on holiday and stopped at a pub at lunchtime occasionally. Children were not allowed inside so we sat in the gardens. So I ordered a larger and lime. It's a good job Davey asked me what I wanted because I don't think I had any money. Ladies drank this drink in a half pint glass. I like the taste fortunately.

Outside, though, I didn't like the effect. I felt suddenly dizzy and off balance, but of course I didn't want anyone to know I'd just had my first alcoholic drink. I think I might have been within the law for being inside the pub at that age but no-one was allowed to drink alcohol until the age of 18. However the law didn't signify for young people then, and it's the same today.

We went to the place that was showing the film and, as we queued up I told Davey that he only needed to pay half price for me as I was under 16 but he quickly shushed me because the film was Dracular, and X rated, meaning only those over 18 could watch it.

This was another first (and last) for me. I didn't enjoy this horror film but everyone else thought it was hilarious. I've never seen another horror film. I don't see the point. - Oh, I think that's selective memory, because I'm sure I continued to see the Sunday films as long as I went to the club, and there would likely be more horror films shown.

So my dad came to pick me up and when I got home I told my parents what had happened (apart from the kissing bit). My mum, the spokesperson, said "We'd rather you stayed with a group than paired off with one boy and if the group is going into a pub, we aren't going to ban you from going. However, we'd rather you don't drink alcohol."

I said "Oh it didn't occur to me that I could have a non-alcoholic drink! What drinks are there then?" They gave me a list, and I was relieved because I didn't like the sensation the alcohol induced. (Unfortunately this reticence to drink alcohol only lasted about a year or so.)

The girls at school were astounded that I told my parents about the pub. It didn't occur to me to not tell them. I didn't have a perfect relationship with my parents, but it was obviously better than the relationship many adolescents have.

School

This is a quote from John Holt;
"Children (like all people) will live better, learn more, and grow more able to cope with the world if they are not constantly bribed, wheedled, bullied, threatened, humiliated, and hurt; if they are not set endlessly against each other in a race which all but a few must lose; if they are not constantly made to feel incompetent, stupid, untrustworthy, guilty, fearful, and ashamed; if their interests, concerns, and enthusiasms are not ignored or scorned; and if instead they are allowed, encouraged, and (if they wish) helped to work with and help each other, to learn from each other, and to think, talk, write, and read about things that excite and interest them. In short, if they are able to explore the world in their own way, and in as many areas as possible direct and control their own lives."

Just in case you don't have the experience of going to a school, this is what he is describing in the first part of the quote.

• Bribed - with a star, or sticker, and/or a word of praise, and/or certificate given in assembly, and/or time to choose an activity of choice (within limits given) for 'good', meaning compliant behaviour.
  - and all of the above along with a high grade for 'good' work. the child will get a good job, be successful if he does the work well.
• Wheedled - ever heard a teacher encouraging a class to 'behave' and 'get on with their work'?

Bullied - Sent to Head Teacher or Principle's office for not complying, given detention, told to sit still and listen, not allowed to go to the toilet/have a drink of water, when needing to, not allowed to move from desk when needing to get up and stretch legs, having to sit in silence because the teacher insists on it.

Threatened with - being sent to the Head's office, being given detention, a letter home, not amounting to anything if the child does not comply with what the teacher wants him/her to do in the lesson. The child won't get a good job and be poor if he doesn't do the work well. The parents will go get fined or go to jail of the child does not attend school, (if the child is enrolled in that school).

Humiliated - when having to read something out loud and cannot pronounce the words, the teacher tells the child (so everyone can hear) that they have question 3 wrong, being chastised when all can hear.

Hurt - you fill in the blank

Herding a large number of children of the same age into a small space for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, does not seem to be the best way of helping children to become the type of adult you would wish them to become. If they are all at the same level of maturity, how can they help each other to grow emotionally? If most of them don't want to be there, it's likely they will act out their anger and feelings of dis-empowerment on those around them.

This is why I have ceased to be a school teacher.

Designer Handbags

As I was finding my gate in Toronto airport, on my way from Raleigh, North Carolina USA to London, England, I walked through the posh duty free shop. I don't often venture into these places as they don't usually interest me.

I wandered past the designer bags and was really pleased that I couldn't find one I liked! I'd recently bought a bag from Walmart for $12 which I much preferred to any of the ones on display. I was shocked at this reaction and so, just in case I was being swayed by the fact that I couldn't afford any of them, especially as I'd just lost my money purse with over $100, I imagined someone telling me to buy any bag I liked as a present. (I have a good imagination.)

So I wandered past them all again, really trying to choose one for my present, ..... and couldn't find any that I wanted to own! I told my imaginary friend, and asked if I may choose something else instead, but was told "No. It's a bag or nothing." So I'm still using my Walmart bag.