What a top treat; an afternoon of cocktails, cream tea and too much red wine with my bestie…this was just what the doctor ordered!
Okay, well probably not the first piece of advice any responsible medical professional would give but, nonetheless this was very much needed. Let me elaborate…
I currently find myself juggling one full time job and three side-hustles. It’s a long story of navigating a new-ish world of work, after steadier school jobs for 30+ years, saying ‘yes‘ to too many offers and in such a higgledy-piggledy order that I am in gainful employ six days a week. I really love most of it …but six days is relentless.
Mix in some festive concerts, which I’ve sandwiched into the few gaps on my calendar and it is safe to say that a week out from Christmas, I am done!
So, I book an afternoon off, call my bestie to arrange our annual ‘cream tea’ and set out to let my hair down and forget about responsibilities for a few hours. And it is fabulous: incredible cocktails, sumptuous red wine and the sort of terrific conversations you can only have with a pal whose known you for 5 decades and is every bit as tipsy as your are.
A marvellous re-charge of the batteries and the perfect curtain raiser to the holidays. I now feel fully in the mood for seasonal frivolities. So, as afternoon melts into evening, join us in a final toast to friendship, to festivities and to finding your way in new jobs and challenges ….
I am channeling my inner ‘Romy and Michele’, as July kicks off with, a school reunion…
It is not the first time school have held such gatherings, but it is the first one I have been to. Why I have always swerved them in the past? I’m not entirely sure!
Was I not curious? Was I not tempted to ‘show off’? ‘Was I not drawn the to chance to re-live my youth?’ These are, some of, the reasons the RGS Foundation cite in their article ‘Top 10 reasons you should attend your old school reunion’. But I have to confess to none of these emotions. I’ve always been pretty successful at keeping in contact with my closest school pals, plus we now have social media to widen friendship groups further, so the classmate contact feels already in place.
What about the building themselves then? Retreading the corridors with their memories and ghosts? Sitting in your former classroom and feeling yourself racing back in time? Triggers to old traditions and long-forgotten routines? As another writer, penning on the topic of reunions puts it,
You can explore the hallways, classrooms, and other parts of the school, which can bring back a flood of emotions and nostalgia.
Sorry, but this isn’t me either, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, life’s twists and turns, have brought back in my home town and my children have all attended my old school for their sixth-form studies. So, via inductions, open days and parental evenings, I’ve gradually re-built my recollections of the lovely old buildings and gracious grounds…what’s left of them that is. Because, secondly, there has been so much building and expansion that ‘my school’ of the 1980s is barely recognisable in places.
So why do I go this time?
Well clearly not for any of the usual reasons. Above all, readers, I have reached the glorious 50s, a decade when you joyfully realise that you no longer give ‘two penn’orth’ for the opinions of others but you do welcome a social event on the midweek calendar. I sign up because one of my oldest friends, who now lives far away, announces that she is going to attend and I think… ‘this sounds like fun!’
And that is exactly what it turns out to be.
As the great day dawns, I race home from work, just in time to fling open the front door, welcome my visitor and … open a bottle of fizz. Two glasses down, we grab a uber into town and head through the school gates into a foyer of: canapes, bucks fizz and a bustle of ‘old girls.’ Amidst the crowds we find other members of our class, listen to some speeches, potter around the school, laugh over our old class register and then…head for the pub.
It is great to see everyone and catch-up, face to face. Wonderful women, funny and smart, who are living life with all its ups and downs, (mostly ups). And it is hilarious to look back together; the infamous ‘ouija board’ affair, some notable vocal performances, old romances, the occasional teacher-crush and we find that, whilst we can still parrot off each other’s childhood landline numbers, nobody can agree on who our fourth year form tutor was!
It’s also just nice to let my hair down over a few drinks. Well, I say a few but as we stumble back into the house, my sober offspring later tell me, I am doing impressions of my brothers and reminiscing about the day Elvis died ! I still cannot remember much of that and, ruefully concede that I should probably have heeded Women’s Health’ s school reunion tip number 10, “Go Easy on the Alcohol!”
The next day, thankfully a planning away-day, is not my finest hour. But, on balance, I decide, very much worth it. Were school days the ‘best days of my life’? Well, whether they were or were not, that is definitely the most fun I’ve had on a Thursday evening ‘school night’ for a very long time. Here’s to the next time ladies …
Dame Jacqueline Wilsonis on the radio this morning, talking about a concert with the BBC Symphony Orchestra to celebrate her books and, if I lived in London, I would have set out to the Barbican right there and then to get a ticket! Because, I love her writing. Lively characters who just dance off the page and plots that hook you from opening chapter and are ‘can’t put this down‘ engaging. But here is the thing; I didn’t read these books as a child. No, I chanced upon her through my own children. At bedtimes, we’d read them together and she made such times magical and a truly (unexpected but) delightful parental treat. So, as I sit in my lounge with a large cup of coffee, I decide to indulge and look back at my other favourite finds from the, ‘reading to your children’ years…
Now, to be clear, my favourite quartet are not necessarily the books my children read the most. Small Boy’s obsession with ‘Captain Underpants‘ and the ‘Hunger Games‘ era, when I barely saw my eldest without a book for weeks, are not titles I read a single word of. Why? Because by this stage my offspring had moved into the realms of independent literary appreciation and I simply left them and their imaginations to it. The delicious time for me to discover new children’s authors and to venture once again into the fantastic world of children’s fiction was a far narrower window. It came in the short span of years when I read to my trio of toddlers and it was here, amongst the cherished jewels I still hold dear from my own childhood, that I uncovered new titles, great new writers and, just as I had done as a child, set off on amazing new adventures.
And so it was that I was introduced to Dame Jacqueline Wilson. I picture my two girls racing up to their attic room, fluffy and clean from bathtime, to dive under the covers ready for the next chapter of ‘Double Act‘ or the ‘The Illustrated Mum‘ and I’d be as excited as them, because she is such a terrific writer that, never mind the kids, I simply couldn’t wait to find out what happened next. Dare I confess to occasionally reading on, even after both of them had drifted off to sleep? For me her gift was to draw you in, hook, line and sinker, to the world of her young characters and make you care for them completely. My absolute favourite, ‘Best Friends‘, stayed in my head and heart for days and I do recall my two little daughters staring at me wide-eyed as I stumbled to the end, my voice choking on that final chapter.
But I’ve already hinted at four, so here are my other three:
Judith Kerr; oh my goodness I still feel a tingle of excitement at the sound or sight of ‘The Tiger who came to Tea‘. A family member gifted the children an edition complete with a tiny china tea set that we would fill with water to act out the famous ‘tea scene’ as my trio of toddlers would ask me to read it again and again and again. Every word was a joy but my most-loved scene was always this one; the mother’s calm response to what should have been the strangest request she was ever going to receive, ‘Do you think I could have tea with you?’ asks the tiger, ‘Of course, come in’ says mum! More learned critics than I have hypothesised in depth about this little book, reflecting Kerr’s own childhood experiences in Nazi Germany, but this is my favourite point because it is at this moment that you cast aside adulthood and become a child again. Because in a child’s ‘imaginative play ‘ this is exactly what would happen to keep the game going. Why there is a large carnivorous predator at the door… come on in, we’ll find you a cup and plate and make conversation!
The Tiger who came to Tea: Judith Kerr
And onto Lauren Childs and her inspirational creation Clarice Bean. One of my friends passed on these books, as her own daughter grew out of them, whereupon we all fell in love with Clarice (and Betty Moody and Mrs Wilberton). So much so, in fact, that this one made it onto audio book version for the car and turned long dreary car journeys into a delightful escape into the imagination. So funny, so sharp and such brilliant writing that the tying together of all the crazy capers and plot lines would keep us guessing until the final page. Having listened to it so many times, I can probably recite huge chunks verbatim and the best ‘Clarice quotes’ live on in our household even now, and why wouldn’t they …
“I say ‘Mom, how come you don’t change into an evening gown for dinner?’ She says ‘I do, it’s called a bath robe.
And to finish, JK Rowling, Harry Potter and well …what an incredible read. Her words filled my head with pictures and my heart with emotion. Perhaps more so than any other writer she took me back to that feeling I had as a child of ‘living in a book’. Yes, below the age of 10, with my head perennially stuck in an Enid Blyton, I’d often appear to be present in the room but the truth was that I was nearly always not really there! No, I’d be away on Kirrin Island with the Famous Five, or in the dormitories of Malory Towers with Darryl and Sally. And Harry Potter did this for me again. She was also my first find of the ‘reading to your children years’… in fact it is a faintly ridiculous tale.
As I was pregnant with my eldest, I foolishly told my husband that the midwife had proclaimed it ‘never too early’ to start reading to your babies. Read to them in the womb! Read to them when they are a day old! They won’t know what you are reading so read anything; it could be the perfect time to read ‘War and Peace’. Well my husband decided that it was the perfect time for me to read ‘Lord of the Rings‘. Quite why I agreed, I’ll never know but, as we brought my Eldest home I did indeed, every evening cradle her in my arms and subject her to Tolkien. Yes I ploughed my way through all three of those lengthy tomes, engaging with the story of Frodo and Sam, but finding all the complicated names, tribes and battles for power tortuous on occasion. However, by the time Prom-dress daughter appeared, the cursed ring was safely consumed in the fires of Mordor and I was free; free to meet Harry, Ron and Hermoine! Well what a difference. From the second the Hogwarts Express drew into the platform, I was addicted, gripped and invested. I devoured those books whether I had any children to listen to me or not! The books sparkled, fired the imagination, flooded my head with lavish images and, at time, pulled my heart from my chest. Reading to my toddlers became a cherished half hour of the day when I, as much as them, escaped from the stresses, strains and toil that parenting small children can bring.
Gosh, great memories! My teens are all grown-up now and for me, the world of children’s books is a closed chapter once again but not forever I hope… roll on the grandchildren years….
Smashing Single Parenthood 