Books about those two

great loves in the lives of many little girls - horses and ballet - never particularly appealed to me. I never participated in either activity. The only horses I knew were the big cart horses that pulled the bread delivery vans and were kept in the field at the back of one of the houses we lived in. Nobody rode those horses.
I suppose there must have been some little girls who had ballet lessons but I did not know any.
I found Noel Streatfeild's book Ballet Shoes in the library and might not have read that except for the librarian telling me, "It is not really about ballet. I think you might like it."
I did. It was an old fashioned book even when I read it. The action takes place well before WWII. The book was first published in 1936. You can still buy copies today.
I liked the fact that it was set in London. I wanted to go to Cromwell Road. Pauline, Petrova and Posy appealed to me and so did the other characters in the house.
As a child I had no idea how unusual the book was and I wonder if even the librarian knew just how different it was. The idea of young children working in order to contribute to the household finances was completely foreign to me. It was unheard of where I lived. Children went to school. They had jobs to do at home and they might, if they were a little older, deliver papers in order to earn pocket money but they did not work outside the family.
I went on to read "The Circus is Coming". I still feel discomfort at the reception Peter and Santa get from their Uncle Gus and still cringe at the description of Santa "playing" the violin.  It is not a book which would win the Carnegie Medal now but it did then. I knew nothing about Carnegie Medals but the book stayed with me. 
There were no more Streatfeilds in the library at the time. We moved on and my reading was limited to the books the library sent through the Country Lending Service. Someone else was choosing books for me and sending them out to the country. There were never enough books. I did not even know Noel Streatfeild had written more books until I rejoined the library as a regular reader several years later.
I remember then that I tried desperately to catch up on all the reading I felt I had missed out on. I found "White Boots" and wondered why Lalla and Harriet wanted to slither and slide on ice. I had never seen a skating rink and had only heard of Hans Brinker through Dutch friends. I went on to things like "The Painted Garden", "Apple Bough" and "Wintle's Wonders".
The Whirlwind and her friends discovered "Ballet Shoes" for themselves. They first saw it on television. The Whirlwind read the book and said, "The book is much better. Are there any more?"  I handed my copies over and they disappeared for months as they were passed around her class. It was an anxious wait but eventually I did get them back.
        "Can you tell me why you liked them?" I asked a group of the Whirlwind's classmates.
        "Well those girls (in Ballet Shoes) are real aren't they? It doesn't always go right for them and Petrova absolutely hates it but she does it anyway."
        "And Pauline is really sort of grown up about things."
        "And Posy is just like B.... because ballet is the only thing that matters to her but she needs her sisters too."
They went on to make similar comments. I pointed out that the stories were, by their standards, very old.
One of them looked at me very hard and said, "That does not matter if it is a good story."

The untidiest shop in

the city has to be not too far from us, about a fifteen minute pedal away if I get a clear run.
I do not visit it unless I cannot possibly avoid it. It sells a wide variety of homewares, linens and soft furnishings, haberdashery and craft items. There is even some knitting yarn - although not the sort that I would normally bother to buy.
You go in through the sliding doors at the front and are faced with everything from batteries, cheap plastic emergency rain-capes, kitchen tongs, pillow protectors and drinking straws. That is merely the start. Move a little further on and there are pillows, towels, biscuit cutters, hair dryers, candle holders, bath mats, sewing machines, glasswear, table mats, plasticwear, sewing thread, curtain accessories, sewing patterns, patchwork fabric, all sorts of haberdashery, the knitting yarn, all sorts of crafty things, more habydashery and a section for birthday parties. 
None of it is tidy. It is just there. It may start out as tidy but I have never seen it that way.
If you are lucky you will find what you want. You can ask a member of the staff of course but they will just wave in what they believe to be the right direction and tell you "Over there." It does not help very much.
If you want cut goods then there is a ticket system for service. That works reasonably well. You now need to queue to pay for anything else - even when the girl behind the cut goods counter has nobody else to serve.
Some months ago they changed the location of some things in the shop. They called it "re-organising" but there is no more rhyme or reason to it than before. In order to find what I needed I had to sort through a box of similar items. Some had spilled over onto the floor. I put them back in the box. I am not a tidy person but even I have limits.
There was a time when the shop was a little tidier. They employed an energetic woman of about fifty. She came from Poland and she knew about both knitting and sewing because, at school in Poland, she had been taught to do both.  If she was not serving and advising she would be tidying. It was a constant job. I liked her energy and her personality. She was very, very good at her job and people liked her.
You could be reasonably sure of finding something quickly if she had been on her shift. It was actually possible to walk into the habydashery section and know that she was there or had just been there. It would not be absolutely tidy but things would be in their place. There would be nothing on the floor and no piles of goods on the counter waiting to be returned to their shelves.
I did not see her on my last visit to the shop or yesterday so I asked another assistant.
        "Oh she was always tidying stuff up so someone asked her if she wanted another job down south somewhere."
I am sure there will be a very tidy shop somewhere.

"That cult is causing

more misery," the Senior Cat told me some days ago. He was referring to a local group where the leader had managed to take the life savings of a gullible woman with a disability. The court has ordered the return of the money but I rather doubt it will happen. Certainly the cult leader is fighting it.
I wonder how much difficulty Katie Holmes will have getting money out of Tom Cruise too.
Scientology is something my family does know something about. My mother's brother was, briefly, involved. He was a prime candidate for capture by just such a group. He was brought up in another cult. So was my mother. Their parents were "Christian Scientists".
There is nothing "scientific" about Christian Scientists. They are not considered to be Christians by the mainstream religions either. Those who adhere strictly to their beliefs accept no medical treatment at all. Children have died in agony because of the beliefs of their parents. Other children have gone without necessary medical treatment that could have changed their lives.
My mother never quite gave up her own belief in the teachings of the cult. Her brother did give them up but he moved to other things. Scientology was one of them.
I was in my teens at the time. My uncle was reading literature that, to me, made no more sense than the "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" that my mother still treasured. Both lots of writing were nonsense in my view and in the view of my brother.  My brother made an impressive looking "e-meter" with wires and batteries, dials and needles. We thought it was funny.
We thought it was funny until my uncle realised he was being taken for a fool and left the group - or tried to leave the group. When he tried to leave the phone calls started.
My uncle was living with his mother at the time. It was a temporary arrangement because of his work but the Scientologists made the most of it.
They would phone at all hours of the day and night. Changing the phone number did not help. Cars appeared at the front of the house. My grandmother was approached in the street.  On one occasion she was told by phone that he was seriously ill following an accident - only Scientology could save him.
I answered the phone on one occasion and was told the same thing. I responded by telling them I would go to the police if they did not cease making the calls. After that there were several occasions on which I answered the phone and the caller at the other end simply hung up. There were no caller ID facilities available then but I assumed they were from the cult. My brother had the same thing happen to him after he gave them the same message.
The cult members attempting to recruit in the city got short shrift from me and my brother as well. Our loathing of the other cult, Christian Science, was enough to ensure we did not get involved whatever inducements they might seem to offer.
I cannot remember how long all this went on for but it eventually lessened. Over the years there would be the occasional "reminder" but they appeared to give up.
After my uncle died the people who had bought the house he had lived in with my grandmother contacted us. There was a letter there - from the Scientology organisation in America.  It was a reminder that he had once belonged to the cult, an assumption that he still really wanted to be part of the cult. The cult had not bothered to check to see if he was still alive. Their arrogance assumed he would be and that he would still come back to them after forty years away.
Katie Holmes is going to have problems for the rest of her life too.

I have a map of

Thurso in 1905.  It arrived yesterday. Friends sent it after I mentioned that early Ordnance survey maps were mentioned on "The History Girls" and were available for some areas. They are in Scotland at present and found an early Edinburgh map for themselves - and the Thurso one for me.
Thurso? Yes, my ancestors come from that area. The idea of having a map of an area they would have known was interesting but I had not expected that there would be any.
I think I have mentioned before that I like maps. There is something fascinating about the way places come together on a map. Who lives there? Why do they live there? What do they do? What do they believe and why do they believe it? Why did someone settle there in the first place? Why was the place given that name?
The questions are endless. They are rarely answered but it is still fascinating to look and guess. It is still fascinating to use my imagination.
Some of the early Ordnance Survey maps have another feature though. Those put out by Godfreys have other information on the back. This was also mentioned in the blog post I read on "The History Girls". The publishers have used directories written at the time and indicated who was living or working at a specific address.
I opened the map out. I looked at a town which was larger than I had expected it to be. We have always been given the impression that Thurso was not much more than a small village at the time my great-grandparents left Scotland.
If that is so then the village had grown a lot in about thirty years. The map shows a fair sized place. I can guess where the oldest section of the town is. It will be close to the harbour. What would then have been the newer section of the town is laid out in a neat grid pattern. Someone has obviously planned it rather than merely allowed it to grow. Who did that? Why?
Then I turned the map over. I do not know much about my great-grandfather's extended family but there is his surname - my surname. It appears on the list of businesses several times. In an area that size all those people would be distant relatives. Some of my ancestors were bakers, butchers, milliners and tailors. I know others were lawyers, engineers, sailors and "dominies" (teachers).  They often combined these occupations with crofting to make ends meet.
I wonder what these people were like. What were their interests? When they had a little leisure time how did they fill it?
I want to find the real places one day. I hope I can.

The Senior Cat was once

prescribed some sleeping pills. This was after he had surgery on his shoulder and he was having problems sleeping because of the pain.
I find that perfectly reasonable. Sleeping on a sore shoulder must be very difficult indeed. Sleeping pills seemed like a good idea if it meant he was going to get some rest and recover.
The doctor prescribed "Stilnox". We knew nothing about the drug then. My father duly took one of the pills and went to bed expecting a good night's sleep.
I woke in the middle of the night to hear him wandering around. Then I realised he was in the kitchen. He was ratttling things around. As it was much too late for him to be getting a bedtime drink and I thought he should be asleep I investigated.
He was standing at the kitchen table with a fork in one hand and a tin of baked beans in the other.
        "What are you doing?" I asked
        "I'm trying to get this can of lemonade open."
My father had no idea what he was doing. His speech was not slurred. He seemed to be coordinated. His breathing was normal. I asked him to do several small things. He could. I decided he was "asleep".
I took the beans and the fork and gave him lemonade. He drank it and went back to bed.
In the morning my father could remember none of this at all. He insisted he had not done any of it. I showed him the evidence - no lemonade. Right.
To be absolutely certain everything was okay I 'phoned the surgery and explained the problem to the receptionist.
A little later my father's GP phoned me. He asked me what had happened and then to repeat the little tests I had done the night before. My father could still do them but, to be on the safe side, the doctor admitted him into hospital overnight.
At the end of this he said,
         "It's the Stilnox. Don't take it. I'll find something else."
Since then we have heard of two other people we know having similar experiences. One woman emptied her freezer and found everything on the kitchen table in the morning. The man went off in his pyjamas and barefeet to buy a paper at 2am although they get the paper delivered. Both had taken Stilnox and never done anything like that before.
This morning there is a piece in our paper saying that our Olympic athletes will not be allowed to use the drug either. I hate to think what they might do if they did - dive off the top of a building thinking they were doing a triple somersault into the pool? The idea terrifies me.
 

If I say "red",

what colour do you think of?
No, it is not a silly question. Red is not "just red". There is red and scarlet and crimson and vermilion. There is burgundy, maroon, cherry, wine, cerise, tomato, fire-engine, letter/pillar box, strawberry and rose red.
There are other reds too. I could haul out my tin of Derwent colouring pencils and find more.
It is the same with blue - cobalt, navy, french, sapphire, turquoise, aquamarine, saxe, teal and hyacinth for a start. Green has emerald, jade and lime.
They are just a start. I can remember my paternal grandfather used to sometimes bring home an English "Women's Weekly" for my grandmother. There were knitting patterns in it and there would always be a list of suggested colours under the black and white picture. The colours were rarely plain red or blue or green. They would be given more exotic names.
Last Friday a friend and I were putting the squares together for a blanket that will be raffled off for charity. The squares are mostly tan but others are mottled yellow, blue and green. They do go together in the unexpected way that colours can go together when you least expect it.
We needed a border to pull the blanket together. I had pulled out some odds and ends from my "stash" and I was surprised by the colour my friend reached out for. It was grey. It is not a colour I would have considered putting with tan but she is a quilter.
          "It will work," she told me. I do not doubt that it will. She is going to put the border on and things have a way of working for her.
She left with the yarn for the border and the blanket. After she had gone my father said to me, "What's she going to do with the mouse?"
He meant the yarn. He saw it as mouse colour.

Would you buy a house

where murders had recently been committed?
The weekend magazine section of our paper has an article about this. Someone is trying to sell the bank and house (an attached residence) in Snowtown. There were some particularly grisly murders committed there - so bad that the land agent has suggested that, if anyone does want to buy the place, the building could be turned into a "tourist attraction".
I for one would not want to visit such an "attraction". It holds no such attraction for me.
My own feeling is that it is one of those rare instances in which the government, which originally owned the property anyway, should step in. They should demolish the building and perhaps turn the land into public garden instead. It is not the sort of tourist attraction any town needs. The Snowtown locals do not want it either.
I also believe that land agents should be required to inform people of the use to which a house has been put within living memory. There are people who do not feel comfortable at the thought of living in houses where certain actrivities have taken place.
My mother was like that. When my parents moved back to the city after many years of teaching in rural schools there was going to be the problem of where to live. They had not, like many people, had the opportunity to buy a house. They were required to live in Education Department provided accommodation and pay rent for that.  Even with a deposit they would be considered too old to get a mortgage.
Just before they returned to the city though my maternal grandmother died. It left the house my mother's parents owned empty. My mother shared the inheritance with her brother. Her brother had his own home. He did not need it. My parents moved in and used the money they had saved to pay out my uncle. They had a house.
It was not a good house. My mother hated it. The physical house was in fair shape but it was filled with memories of my mother's unhappy childhood. Everywhere she looked their were reminders of her parents, particularly her mother. My mother was firmly rooted in reality. She was not an imaginative woman but she felt as if there were "ghosts" there. They were not the sort who appear or menace you. They were just there.
The house was painted out. Some of the furniture went and other furniture was brought in. The dining room was converted to a bedroom and the little pantry off it was turned into a wardrobe.  The garden was altered. It was still not enough.
My father retired first. He went searching and found the block of land on which this house stands. He showed it to my mother. They did the sums and decided they could, just, afford to build a house without memories.
The house now has memories. I wonder what it is like for my father to be constantly reminded of my mother. There are things I have not changed because my father would notice.
Yesterday however I cleared out a drawer and quietly disposed of some things I have never used. They have gone to the charity shop. My father will not notice their absence. He does not do the cooking. I do not need the ghosts.