The judge said

you need to do...this....or that...or something else.

Right around me yesterday there were people who had acted as "stewards" to the judges in the Handicrafts section of the Show. Every so often I would hear the words, "The judge said..."

I said the words myself, more than once. Unless people ask I don't say much but if there has been something specific then it can help and encourage people to enter something again.

 This year was no different.  There were people who wanted to know things. One woman asked why her rug was entered in the wrong class. When I explained she looked at me and then smiled and said, "Thanks. That makes sense." And off she went apparently quite happy that, although she had not won a prize, she would know what to do next time.

There was the obvious "newbie". I explained - not for the first time - about doing what we call "blocking your work". She was sufficiently interested to take out her phone and start searching. "This sort of thing?" she asked me and, when I agreed, she added,"Okay, I'll go and look."

"But I made it with a crochet hook!" someone else wailed. I had to explain that, just because she had used a crochet hook did not mean that the item she had made came under the definition of "crochet". I don't think she really believed me.

Inevitably there was the woman who enters multiple items each year and expects to get a first prize for each of them. Her work is good, very good  - but sometimes there are people whose work the judge considers to be even better.  I congratulated her as I handed her items over but I was met with stony silence. The young girl, not out of her teens, who did win a first in the same section actually looked at me in bewilderment and said, "I still don't believe this is real...my father will be so pleased." It turned out that her mother had died some time ago. She had found all the yarn in her mother's stash, taught herself how to knit from internet videos and then made the item. As she rushed off to work saying "and my boss said to come and get it so I can show the others" I thought of how different the two attitudes were - and which one I preferred.

There was the woman who came in with her teenage son. They had both made "memory" boxes which we pass on to the Women's and Children's hospital. He won the first prize. She had won a commended. "I lost a child in 2015" she told me, "I was given one of these." I looked at the boy to congratulate him and he smiled and put his arm around his mother. There were no words necessary.

It is this sort of thing which makes all the hard work worthwhile. I hope I am still fit enough to help next year because encouraging other people to participate is good. Seeing what they have made, even if it has many faults, is encouraging. If people still want to create then I have some hopes for the future. 

Permission to hug?

There was a piece in yesterday's paper which disturbed me. It is about a new piece of social training in preschools, kindergartens and early school. It is about teaching children to "ask babies their permission to hug them".

Yes of course it is a little bit more complex than that but it is one of those ideas that has a small grain of "good"  in it which is then turned into teaching children a range of behaviours currently deemed to be correct but which may not actually be what is for the best.

As a "grown up" I do not generally hug people I don't know or I know do not like to be hugged. I once hugged someone I didn't know at all. She was a complete stranger but the situation demanded it. She responded by clinging to me and weeping. I don't know how I knew but I knew I had done the right thing. Part of it surely had to be something I had been able to learn in kittenhood?

I loathed being hugged by my maternal grandparents. I loved being hugged by my paternal grandparents. I knew instinctively the difference between them and the reasons for the hugs I was given. My siblings were the same. "Boys don't hug" Brother Cat would tell our maternal grandparents when he would wrap his paternal grandmother with a hug.

I hugged someone I knew only by sight the day she burst into tears in the greengrocer and admitted her daughter had recently committed suicide. I see her occasionally and she has never forgotten it. Indeed she once introduced me as "Cat, was one of those people who was there when I needed it most."  She is intensely loyal to the greengrocer who moved everyone out of the way so I could hold her.

I hugged a friend who normally does not like being hugged when I went to the funeral of her partner. It was right on that occasion.

We have to teach children when hugging is appropriate but trying to tell them they need to ask permission of a baby is wrong. Ask permission of the parent? Yes. That way they will learn the proper boundaries and respect. 

How to start a (royal) rumour

is perhaps to base it ever so slightly in fact.

Like everyone else I have heard and even seen any number of "facts" about the Royal family in the last few days. Most of them have come from the anti-monarchist crew. Some of them have come from reporters - who should know better - and some have come from people who simply don't think but repeat what they believe they have seen or heard.

So, what really happened? If we look at a couple of incidents it is interesting. There is for instance the GIF which was shown of the new King apparently demanding that an ink pot be moved out of his way. Someone created that for the purpose of suggesting HRH is a rude, impatient man who expects to be waited on. The reality? He simply shifted it himself and, in response to what was probably something like "Would you like me to move that sir?" he actually looks back, smiles and says "thank you". 

There's a clip where someone complains that Prince William does not open a car door for his partner but Prince Harry does. Again it is completely false to suggest that Prince William is not showing his wife the same courtesy. There is a security man there who does the job instead...who would always do it. If the Prince was being driven rather than doing the driving security would do it for the Prince as well. But it is convenient for an anti-monarchist to suggest that the Prince is not a civil man who cares for his partner.

There were also all sorts of rumours flying around about how Prince William delayed asking Prince Harry and his partner to join them when they did go to meet people. Then there has been all the "analysis" of where they stood in relation to one another and how far apart they stood and their gestures and much more. Really? It is nonsense. They behaved in relation to each other as the vast majority of people would behave in a similar situation.

There is nothing at all to be made of Prince Harry's partner not going to Balmoral. The reality is simple. It would not have been appropriate because the then Duchess of Cambridge was not going. Her first responsibility, and the one the Queen would have wanted her to deal with, was to the three children who were going to be upset. 

Trying to make something of nothing is what so many people will continue to do in the next few weeks. After all it is what makes so much "news". It really isn't news at all. It  simply makes some little people feel big - because it does so much harm. 

Packing light?

It is more than twenty years since I have needed to pack to spend a night away from this house. Yes, I know that's not good. I do need a holiday, a proper holiday. I need the sort of holiday where someone else does the cooking and the dishes. 

It won't be happening just yet either. I want it to happen. I have thought about it and wondered how I might be able to do it, where I might go if I can't go back to the United Kingdom. Really though if I have just one holiday left in my life I want to go back to the place which  was my second home and is one I still miss.

But packing to go? I thought of this as I looked at the cartoon by

Eleanor Tomlinson.

  

I thought then of Paddington arriving from "darkest Peru" with just that small suitcase. I thought of a former lecturer who arrived in this country with the clothes he was wearing and his Bible. I thought of my paternal great-grandmother who came with a small trunk - which held everything  to marry and set up house.

The Queen seemed to have a vast wardrobe and many places to live but in many ways Her Majesty also travelled light. Behind the scenes the Royal residences would surprise many people. They most definitely are not the luxurious places people imagine them to be. Yes, they might be nicer than many places but the furnishings are often old and comfortable. Nothing gets wasted. The apparently vast Royal wardrobe was much less than it appeared to be. Clothes were altered and hats were trimmed again - so cleverly most of us never noticed.  

My own wardrobe is not vast. There are clothes in it I have had for thirty or more years. I still use them. As a student in the UK I went to France and Italy one winter  with my clothes packed into a small airways bag. It wasn't the best but it was the best I could do if I was going to carry my own luggage - and I managed. I doubt I could do it now but when you are very young, very foolish, and very innocent you can manage such things. It also prevented me from buying foolish souvenirs. 

Now I need to start seriously "downsizing". My brother, sisters and I will need to decide "who has what" and what needs to be sold or given away. I need to part with books - and that will be hard  - and decide how much yarn I can use. I also need to decide what other craft materials I want to keep so small people will have something to do when they come to visit.  No, I won't simply give it all away.

It's about packing light though. There is a balance to be had somewhere. One airways bag is not enough but I should not need all the suitcases and trunks and hat boxes that people travelled with in the past.

Actually, I don't have a hat box at all.... 

A time to mourn and not a time

to make demands. Even if the demands were supported by a majority - and they are not according to the most recent polls - this was no time to make demands that "now" is the time for this country to "become a republic". 

There was a knock at the front door yesterday and then the Whirlwind's closest friend burst in flung herself on me and started to cry.  I had not seen her for quite a while. I knew she was struggling. Her mother told me that. She had even admitted it herself. 

That was a good thing. She has been staying close to home and not mixing too much at school. Her schoolwork has remained up to her usual standard but it has been a struggle for her. We all know she is missing her friend as much as we do, perhaps even more. It was a particularly close friendship, one of those which was likely to endure a lifetime. 

And yesterday was too much for her. There was an assembly at school and of course the girls were informed of the death of the Queen.  Some of the girls have parents who had met the Queen or other members of Her Majesty's family. A....'s parents are in that category and she has been brought up to honour and respect the monarchy.  When wretched social media began to filter through with some particularly vicious comments from people for whom I and many others have no respect there was apparently a good deal of concern at school. A...'s form teacher did her best to deflect all this and point out how inappropriate it was but A... was very upset.

"I feel so sorry for them. It's their mother and their granny and it is like those people don't even care!" she sobbed on my shoulder. It left me in tears too. "It doesn't matter who it is and even if they don't like them they should feel sorry for them because of that," she told me.

And that is greater wisdom and compassion than the likes of the leader of the so-called "Republican Movement" or the leader of "the Greens" or several politicians who are supposed to represent others have shown.  It is the way I admire A... for reacting. I also think it was a good thing. When she had calmed down somewhat we talked for a bit - the first real talk we have had in a long time. I suggested she phone her mother to say where she was because she was going to be a bit late getting home.

"It's me. I just had to talk to Cat but I'm okay now. I'll tell you when I get there."

I am thankful I was home. I might not have been. Those who used the moment to push their own agenda, often a bitter and grasping agenda that does not relate to reality,  could listen to A... and learn from her.  It reminded me yet again that there is hope for the upcoming generation - perhaps quite a lot of hope. 

I never met Queen Elizabeth

but she was an influence on my life.

One of my early memories is of sitting on the Senior Cat's shoulders and waving a small flag. Then there was the big car and the person who waved to us.

"That's the Queen," the Senior Cat explained. I don't know how much of that I understood at the time. It was probably not a great deal.

But I went through school "saluting the flag and honouring the Queen" at assemblies on Fridays. As a Brownie and then as a Guide I made and renewed promises to do the same. 

They are the sort of promises that many have made...and broken. I have tried to keep those promises because my paternal grandfather did meet the Queen and he tried to make all of us understand that the role she played was not the glamorous one it appeared to be. He succeeded in that. Her job was possibly one of the most boring, tedious and yet responsible jobs ever created. All those speeches she had to make, all those she had to sit through, all the hands she had to shake and the polite meaningless conversation are not something I would ever want to do. I never envied her. 

I went on to meet first her husband. I met Prince Philip twice - both times it was never intended to happen. On both occasions I know I thought of the time they needed to spend apart because of their roles. Even marriage for the Queen was necessarily different. 

I met and got to know her daughter-in-law Diana before she married into the family. I often wonder what the Queen made of Diana. I suspect Diana was treated with kindness by a woman who was well aware of how difficult the role was that she was expected to play. 

Certainly the Queen Mother was there in the background ready to support them both. When I met her she was a delight. She was thoughtful enough to ask Diana to come to afternoon tea as well and now I can lay claim to having nursed a future King of England. He was a very young baby at the time. If by some extraordinary chance I ever meet him again will I dare to tell him about this? Probably not... and it is not likely to happen anyway.  

I say none of this out of any wish to boast, rather to say that these people are just that - people. They are doing a job. It is a job which many believe is unnecessary. It is a job ardent republicans would like to see thrown into the dust bin of history never to be recycled. At the same time others see the monarchy as having a role to play, the role of bringing a nation together. Governments can change, disintegrate, make poor decisions and more but a monarch in the background, especially one who is so highly respected, is a steadying influence.

It is said that a monarch has a right to be consulted, to advise and to warn. The Queen knew that. She informed herself and became, according to my late lecturer in Constitutional Law, an outstanding constitutional lawyer. The formal qualification may not have been there but she knew an enormous amount and used that knowledge. Her Privy Council listened to her. Prime Ministers came and went. Her loyalty to her country was absolute. It is said that her power lay in having no power at all.  It is a contradiction which seems to work.

My generation will miss the Queen whatever our views on monarchies.

 

 

So what exactly is "net zero"?

If I was depending on a politician for an answer it seems I would not get one. 

Apparently the question came up in the Senate yesterday. It was asked by a rabble rousing Senator for whom I had no time - until yesterday. That does not mean I like the Senator in question now. It still astounds me that people actually vote for her. Yesterday however she asked a Senator in the government ranks, a Senator who has been outspoken about "climate change" for years to explain "net zero". The Senator could not explain.

I am no climate scientist but I always thought the simplest explanation probably ran along the lines of something like, "What you put into the atmosphere you also take out of the atmosphere in some other environmentally friendly way".  No, it isn't a great explanation. Yes, it is a lot more complicated than that. At the same time though it is surely the sort of explanation that most people would understand?

Later yesterday I had the chance to ask a few people how they would define it. Their definitions varied from something like mine to "I don't know but it's what we have to do." Perhaps a little more education is called for?

And then the first Senator asked the second Senator for an estimate of how much all this was going to cost. The answer was "poli-speak" at its very best...in other words there was no answer at all. It was clear the Senator being asked has absolutely no idea what the cost will be. 

I doubt anyone else has any idea either. When I asked the same question of the people I asked for a definition the answers varied from "Millions" to "Billions" and to "Probably trillions but you can't even start to estimate something like that."

The little group went on to talk about "cutting emissions" and "electric vehicles" and "doing our bit" until it started to spit-spot with rain again. We broke up and they went in to their nice warm houses with electric lights blazing out, the television on, a computer running and meals cooking on gas or electricity. My neighbours are lovely people. They are genuinely concerned about the future of the planet for the sake of their children and their grandchildren. I am concerned for their children and grandchildren too, indeed concerned for all children everywhere.

But are we going to "reach targets" we don't even really understand at a price we have yet to be fully informed about? Surely the Senator should be able to provide some information in a form that people can understand?  Perhaps not.