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Lucy’s column for September 30.
Binlo…1
Oh dear, just as we are lulled into the false sense of security that in Derby, at least, our bin men are more benevolent than bullying, we get a slap on the wrist at Orgill Towers. Our crime? We put a plastic bag of hedge clippings in the brown wheelie, on top of the other garden refuse. Yes, it was that bad, dire enough to have a sticker slapped on telling us there were "inappropriate contents" inside, which meant they couldn’t empty it.
Unusually for himself, he didn’t storm the town hall steps bearing a placard with rude words on it, dragging the offensive receptacle, like he threatens he’ll do. Indeed, apart from tearing off the label, which is why I’m not sure of the exact wording, and mouthing a few expletives, he accepted that it was our fault, a stupid oversight, and in future he Must Do Better.
But really, it’s not beyond the wit of bin-man to tap him on the shoulder – he was but a few yards away when the "crime" was uncovered – and ask him to remove the bag, or knock on the door with the same request. Naturally, we wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that the refuse collector just jiggle about with the contents himself, and leave the black bag tucked into the lid. It’s clearly more than his job’s worth.
Our minor incident happened in a week when it was reported that a single mum faced a £700 fine. No, she hadn’t been caught dealing drugs, wielding a knife, or even driving dangerously – oh, silly me, they don’t warrant substantial fines, just a spell of counselling or community service, and never mind if you don’t turn up for either. Her heinous offence was under the heading "advancement of rubbish", meaning she’d put out her bin bags on the wrong day.
A couple of days later, another householder was left with a pile of flattened cardboard, which the recycling men wouldn’t take because it wasn’t cut up small enough.
Then we’ve had the 95-year-old whose collection was refused because he’d put a sauce bottle in the wrong bin by mistake. Not to mention the number of litter bins left unemptied because they were too near the kerb/too far away from the kerb /half-in-half-out of the garden gate/too far to trundle.
It’s the petty-fogging bureaucracy from power-mad councils which make you want to weep for the state of this country.
And you never know who’s lurking in the park these days, do you?
I’m not talking the would-be mugger, or potential paedophile, here. It’s the tinpot town hall dictators imposing petty laws, not to mention hefty fines, on all and sundry.
We read about it every day. There’s always some jobsworth prowling around, waiting to pounce should you drop a crumb, walk on the grass, or, heaven forbid, kick a ball with your toddler, or throw a bit of mouldy Hovis to the ducks.
Law-abiding citizens are sick and tired of being "criminalised" by a Government which is handing even more authority to local councils to create these rules, and more, with hefty financial penalties should we fall foul of these new laws. We can only hope they’re on the case should a mugger, paedophile, riot instigator, or to a lesser degree, a failure to pick up dog-poo criminal, raise their anti-social heads.
Meanwhile, back at our ranch, we will try never again to flout the laws of recycling our rubbish, if you, in turn, will use a bit of nous and common sense if we happen to have a senior moment. Talking of which, I’m the mad woman who, the week before Christmas collection, can be seen at 7am standing on the street corner in my nightie, wielding your £10 Christmas tip. Buoyed in the belief that such bureaucracy doesn’t happen in Derby.
End
Tuesday 30 September 2008
Tuesday 23 September 2008
Fox Watch
Lucy’s column for September 23.
Foxlo..1
We’ve been on fox watch for the past fortnight, which means hail, rain, and even that rare itzy bitzy shining moment, has found us huddled in a corner of the copse – okay, two fir trees and a bush – waiting for a special visitor.
Oh, we’ve fed foxes for years, and viewed their nocturnal dining from a strategic spot which involved a bit of curtain-twitching on our part, and some furtive foraging on theirs, with them taking to their heels if they realised they were being spied on. But a couple of weeks ago, in broad daylight, a cheeky little blighter bounced into a bit of garden inches from the back door. And there he sat, brazen as you like, almost daring us to approach him. Which we did. And he didn’t move a muscle.
Instead, this nearly-grown cub daintily and delicately took food from our hands. Mind you, it was a better class of fare. First came the Sunday roast lamb bone, which he proceeded to bury. But perhaps some instinct had told him that I’d had a purge on the pantry, because he sat on his haunches waiting for the pudding – Cadbury’s flake, long forgotten and turning white, and chocolate digestives so soggy he could be forgiven for thinking they had already been dunked.
We spoon-fed him for nigh-on 20 minutes before he disappeared. We’re now worried that he may have suffered death by chocolate, because despite all our observation efforts, he hasn’t been back.
But there’s always somebody to "top that".
St Francis of Assissi can eat his heart out when it comes to our friends Lil and daughter Dorn Bancroft, the Saints Francesca of Chaddo. Their neighbouring gardens in the midst of suburbia are wildlife havens. Recently, and with a little bit of help from the gas board which had to demolish her fireplace, Dorn rescued two baby squirrels trapped in the chimney breast. And such was their appreciation that, even on returning them to the waiting parents after a couple of days of comestibles and cuddles, they were at her back door and in the house before she could shout "Nuts!".
They are also fox afficianados, and I couldn’t wait to relate our close encounter. Follow that, I thought. But wait for it. One night, as Dorn and son Harris sat in their garden, surrounded by stray cats, leaping frogs, squirrels pleading to be taken into care, in strolled a fox. Quick as a flash, he was in her conservatory, emerging seconds later with her best slippers. Which he proceeded to tear to shreds.
A few days later, in the middle of the day, Lil – who actually buys grapes for the squirrels, has more bird feeders than an endangered species sanctuary, and actively encourages a good slug-eating toad when she sees one – returned from pottering in the front garden to find her best shoes, chewed up, in the back. A fox had not only been in. He’d fetched them from her bedroom. To add insult to injury, he’d tiddled in them!
But, amphibians apart, isn’t wildlife watching wonderful? Friend and fellow columnist Anton Rippon takes great delight in clocking not only frogs, which make me phobic, in their special pond positioned next to his smokers’ gazebo – which has a ditto effect on him - but field mice, as well as the birds and the bees which take sanctuary at Ripponville.
Friends Annie and Dave Colville, and Phyl and Derek Lyon, have followed us in the fox-feeding frenzy, but so far, none of them have fed them manky chocolate from their hands. And it’s going to be a struggle to keep up with Dorn and Lil. But not one of us is going to compare with the recent South African experience of daughter-in-law Claire who, as recounted last week, came face to face with a hyena at her safari cabin door.
end
Foxlo..1
We’ve been on fox watch for the past fortnight, which means hail, rain, and even that rare itzy bitzy shining moment, has found us huddled in a corner of the copse – okay, two fir trees and a bush – waiting for a special visitor.
Oh, we’ve fed foxes for years, and viewed their nocturnal dining from a strategic spot which involved a bit of curtain-twitching on our part, and some furtive foraging on theirs, with them taking to their heels if they realised they were being spied on. But a couple of weeks ago, in broad daylight, a cheeky little blighter bounced into a bit of garden inches from the back door. And there he sat, brazen as you like, almost daring us to approach him. Which we did. And he didn’t move a muscle.
Instead, this nearly-grown cub daintily and delicately took food from our hands. Mind you, it was a better class of fare. First came the Sunday roast lamb bone, which he proceeded to bury. But perhaps some instinct had told him that I’d had a purge on the pantry, because he sat on his haunches waiting for the pudding – Cadbury’s flake, long forgotten and turning white, and chocolate digestives so soggy he could be forgiven for thinking they had already been dunked.
We spoon-fed him for nigh-on 20 minutes before he disappeared. We’re now worried that he may have suffered death by chocolate, because despite all our observation efforts, he hasn’t been back.
But there’s always somebody to "top that".
St Francis of Assissi can eat his heart out when it comes to our friends Lil and daughter Dorn Bancroft, the Saints Francesca of Chaddo. Their neighbouring gardens in the midst of suburbia are wildlife havens. Recently, and with a little bit of help from the gas board which had to demolish her fireplace, Dorn rescued two baby squirrels trapped in the chimney breast. And such was their appreciation that, even on returning them to the waiting parents after a couple of days of comestibles and cuddles, they were at her back door and in the house before she could shout "Nuts!".
They are also fox afficianados, and I couldn’t wait to relate our close encounter. Follow that, I thought. But wait for it. One night, as Dorn and son Harris sat in their garden, surrounded by stray cats, leaping frogs, squirrels pleading to be taken into care, in strolled a fox. Quick as a flash, he was in her conservatory, emerging seconds later with her best slippers. Which he proceeded to tear to shreds.
A few days later, in the middle of the day, Lil – who actually buys grapes for the squirrels, has more bird feeders than an endangered species sanctuary, and actively encourages a good slug-eating toad when she sees one – returned from pottering in the front garden to find her best shoes, chewed up, in the back. A fox had not only been in. He’d fetched them from her bedroom. To add insult to injury, he’d tiddled in them!
But, amphibians apart, isn’t wildlife watching wonderful? Friend and fellow columnist Anton Rippon takes great delight in clocking not only frogs, which make me phobic, in their special pond positioned next to his smokers’ gazebo – which has a ditto effect on him - but field mice, as well as the birds and the bees which take sanctuary at Ripponville.
Friends Annie and Dave Colville, and Phyl and Derek Lyon, have followed us in the fox-feeding frenzy, but so far, none of them have fed them manky chocolate from their hands. And it’s going to be a struggle to keep up with Dorn and Lil. But not one of us is going to compare with the recent South African experience of daughter-in-law Claire who, as recounted last week, came face to face with a hyena at her safari cabin door.
end
Tuesday 16 September 2008
Having the kids
Lucy’s column for September 16th.
Kidslo…1
It’s debatable who drew the short straw – daughter-in-law Claire, on an adventurous, 12-day trip to South Africa. Or the two of us – part-responsible for the grandchildren while she was away. I say part-responsible, because their dad, our son, Simon, was here, but at work. And my word, did their friends rally when it came to taking them off our hands.
But even so, there was the daunting prospect of catering for, and entertaining, 13-year-old Jacob and nine-year-old Grace, who, together with mum, had gone through lip-trembling farewells at Heathrow, but for the sakes of each other, had put on bold and brave fronts. Never since they were babies, who didn’t care so long as somebody shoved a bottle, or a pot of pureed parsnips, in at one end, and cleaned up the other, over a parents’ weekend away, had we had them for so long.
The first hurdle was our six-hour round-trip journey – yes, the ubiquitous tail-backs – to and from Heathrow, with two youngsters who’d just seen their precious mum off to the land of man-eating lions, being fractious and falling out, over whose turn with the I-Pod, tally of Eddie Stobart lorries, choice of granny-labour-saving take-aways when we eventually hit Derby, (Chinese or chippy – no contest, according to each of them, so long as one had the crispy duck and the other the battered cod), and who won the grandparental double bed, all to themselves.
As it happened, Grace won the Stobart contest, Jacob the bed, granny lost out on the food front by conjuring up something yummy in the egg-and-chip pan. And granddad took several hours to calm down from driving seat road rage, placated eventually by a home-made-chips buttie.
But for all that, they were stars. All of them.
For Claire, a teacher at Silverhill School, Mickleover, it was a privileged trip of a lifetime, on a teacher exchange at a school in Durban. It must have been enough leaving behind Simon, Jacob and Grace, but facing a 15-hour journey, alone, with a flight change at Johannesburg, borders on the scary. Coupled with that, she felt nauseous all the way there, and was physically sick during the flight back. She missed her husband and kids for the entire duration. And what could be worse – conducting assembly for nigh-on 800 pupils, or eye-balling a hyena in the dead of night, during a trip to the loo on a weekend safari?
On the up-side, Claire, a dyed-in-the-wool professional, following both parents and grandmother into teaching, claims she had the experience of a lifetime, and loved every moment of the interest, questions, inquisitiveness, and affection, she provoked from the Durban youngsters. As for her own children – I can say, as a grandma, they were an absolute credit in terms of behaviour, fun, bravado, and stoicism.
On the down-side, they breakfasted on chocolate donuts and Coca-Cola between fried-egg sandwiches and beans-on-toast, and ran me ragged round the shops – Grace insisting on real mother-disapproving glittery eye-shadow, which resulted in what looked like styes, and Jacob demanding to go-it-alone in the Westfield Centre, where he spent over an hour – and twenty quid – perusing books.
Family friends Janet, Sue, Marie-Louise, and school-friend Isobel, provided pleasure–filled days for Grace, and Jacob had a super sleep-over with pal and fellow-Scout Matthew. Grace and I enjoyed girly shopping and chatty nights, Jacob and granddad took over the TV and computer without anybody yelling "You’ll get square eyes and a mushy brain."
As for Simon, he played a blinder. On the nights they stayed at home, he dragged down every duvet, pillow, cushion, they possessed, forming what resembled a Bedouin tent, and there they lay, together with the cat, munching pizzas and watching dvds. Claire – feel free to roam the world. Safe in the knowledge that your kids are happy – though not necessarily healthy!
end
Kidslo…1
It’s debatable who drew the short straw – daughter-in-law Claire, on an adventurous, 12-day trip to South Africa. Or the two of us – part-responsible for the grandchildren while she was away. I say part-responsible, because their dad, our son, Simon, was here, but at work. And my word, did their friends rally when it came to taking them off our hands.
But even so, there was the daunting prospect of catering for, and entertaining, 13-year-old Jacob and nine-year-old Grace, who, together with mum, had gone through lip-trembling farewells at Heathrow, but for the sakes of each other, had put on bold and brave fronts. Never since they were babies, who didn’t care so long as somebody shoved a bottle, or a pot of pureed parsnips, in at one end, and cleaned up the other, over a parents’ weekend away, had we had them for so long.
The first hurdle was our six-hour round-trip journey – yes, the ubiquitous tail-backs – to and from Heathrow, with two youngsters who’d just seen their precious mum off to the land of man-eating lions, being fractious and falling out, over whose turn with the I-Pod, tally of Eddie Stobart lorries, choice of granny-labour-saving take-aways when we eventually hit Derby, (Chinese or chippy – no contest, according to each of them, so long as one had the crispy duck and the other the battered cod), and who won the grandparental double bed, all to themselves.
As it happened, Grace won the Stobart contest, Jacob the bed, granny lost out on the food front by conjuring up something yummy in the egg-and-chip pan. And granddad took several hours to calm down from driving seat road rage, placated eventually by a home-made-chips buttie.
But for all that, they were stars. All of them.
For Claire, a teacher at Silverhill School, Mickleover, it was a privileged trip of a lifetime, on a teacher exchange at a school in Durban. It must have been enough leaving behind Simon, Jacob and Grace, but facing a 15-hour journey, alone, with a flight change at Johannesburg, borders on the scary. Coupled with that, she felt nauseous all the way there, and was physically sick during the flight back. She missed her husband and kids for the entire duration. And what could be worse – conducting assembly for nigh-on 800 pupils, or eye-balling a hyena in the dead of night, during a trip to the loo on a weekend safari?
On the up-side, Claire, a dyed-in-the-wool professional, following both parents and grandmother into teaching, claims she had the experience of a lifetime, and loved every moment of the interest, questions, inquisitiveness, and affection, she provoked from the Durban youngsters. As for her own children – I can say, as a grandma, they were an absolute credit in terms of behaviour, fun, bravado, and stoicism.
On the down-side, they breakfasted on chocolate donuts and Coca-Cola between fried-egg sandwiches and beans-on-toast, and ran me ragged round the shops – Grace insisting on real mother-disapproving glittery eye-shadow, which resulted in what looked like styes, and Jacob demanding to go-it-alone in the Westfield Centre, where he spent over an hour – and twenty quid – perusing books.
Family friends Janet, Sue, Marie-Louise, and school-friend Isobel, provided pleasure–filled days for Grace, and Jacob had a super sleep-over with pal and fellow-Scout Matthew. Grace and I enjoyed girly shopping and chatty nights, Jacob and granddad took over the TV and computer without anybody yelling "You’ll get square eyes and a mushy brain."
As for Simon, he played a blinder. On the nights they stayed at home, he dragged down every duvet, pillow, cushion, they possessed, forming what resembled a Bedouin tent, and there they lay, together with the cat, munching pizzas and watching dvds. Claire – feel free to roam the world. Safe in the knowledge that your kids are happy – though not necessarily healthy!
end
Tuesday 9 September 2008
Ower Annie
Lucy’s column for September 9th.
Catlo…1
For nigh-on nineteen years, she ruled out household. With eyes the colour of topaz, and plush grey fur as soft as chenille, she was beautiful. And she knew it. But last week, Ower Annie, the cat we have adored, and in turn, despaired of at times, gasped her last and shuffled off to that paradise of tinned salmon and squirty cream.
She was the last in a long line of family felines stretching back nearly 40 years. Our first, Georgina, lasted 21 years, and was the only one we’d chosen as a kitten, born in the boiler house at the old Manor Hospital. The rest – six in all – just sort of crept through the cat-flap when we weren’t looking, and before we knew it, had their paws under a groaning Whiskas and Felix-filled cat dish, and languid bodies stretched out on various sofas and beds.
At one time, we had three ensconced in Orgill Towers, when Spy – so named because, as a homeless hobo, he came in from the cold one November night – was later joined by Annie, and her sister Emily. Both had flitted from next door, home of our friends and neighbours, Nick and Colette Ball, never to return there. From the moment she perched herself on the kitchen chair nearest the radiator, Annie established herself as Top Cat. Spy, ever the gentleman, was a wuss in her presence. Emily, who eventually went to live with my late son Matthew and his fiancee Rose, trembled in her wake.
Visitors could be forgiven for thinking she was one of those posh, pedigree, Russian Blues, and indeed, she conducted herself as some sort of Tsarina – imperious, disdainful, picky, cold and snooty, choosing a satin cushion over a cosy knee any day, and a food-bowl faddy who refused to eat with the others.
But cop her lolling on a garden-lounger on a sunny day with the light behind her, and were signs of wrong-side-of-the-blanket ginger-tom parenthood among the bluey-grey. And when it came to the nitty-gritty of camouflaging herself as a branch as she sat in a tree waiting to pounce on some unsuspecting sparrow, or stalking a mouse through the garden undergrowth, she was wily, vicious, cruel, and just as yobbish, as her fellow-moggies. We’ve even seen her whack a few foxes around the face when they’ve dared invade her space.
But there was a loving side to her, signs which showed as she grew older, and the other cats croaked. A flick of the landing light switch, and she’d be down the bed before I could say "pyjamas". She greeted every visitor, and when they left, she’d join us at the garden gate to say goodbye. Off for a walk? Ower Annie would trot along beside us. And she is the only cat I’ve know to be barred from a bar. It became her absolute right to accompany us to the nearby Fairholme Club, where she’d tour the grounds before settling down on the settee. One night, though, a member complained because she was allergic to cats. Ever after, we had to sneak out for a drink, and trust she wouldn’t follow.
Like all old stagers, whether they’re aristocratic or common as muck, her quality of life suffered over the past year. Though she ventured out, would hurtle back in and do what she should have done outside, inside. In the end, the dreaded cancer got her, and thanks to the gentle and sympathetic hand of a vet and nurse from the Scarsdale Veterinary Clinic, was put to sleep, on my knee, on her beloved kitchen sofa.
All signs of her existence were gone in half-an-hour. The cat-flap is locked. Anybody turning up with a fluffy kitten will go away with a cat flea in their ear. Annie Orgill has left the building. And we miss her like mad.
end
Catlo…1
For nigh-on nineteen years, she ruled out household. With eyes the colour of topaz, and plush grey fur as soft as chenille, she was beautiful. And she knew it. But last week, Ower Annie, the cat we have adored, and in turn, despaired of at times, gasped her last and shuffled off to that paradise of tinned salmon and squirty cream.
She was the last in a long line of family felines stretching back nearly 40 years. Our first, Georgina, lasted 21 years, and was the only one we’d chosen as a kitten, born in the boiler house at the old Manor Hospital. The rest – six in all – just sort of crept through the cat-flap when we weren’t looking, and before we knew it, had their paws under a groaning Whiskas and Felix-filled cat dish, and languid bodies stretched out on various sofas and beds.
At one time, we had three ensconced in Orgill Towers, when Spy – so named because, as a homeless hobo, he came in from the cold one November night – was later joined by Annie, and her sister Emily. Both had flitted from next door, home of our friends and neighbours, Nick and Colette Ball, never to return there. From the moment she perched herself on the kitchen chair nearest the radiator, Annie established herself as Top Cat. Spy, ever the gentleman, was a wuss in her presence. Emily, who eventually went to live with my late son Matthew and his fiancee Rose, trembled in her wake.
Visitors could be forgiven for thinking she was one of those posh, pedigree, Russian Blues, and indeed, she conducted herself as some sort of Tsarina – imperious, disdainful, picky, cold and snooty, choosing a satin cushion over a cosy knee any day, and a food-bowl faddy who refused to eat with the others.
But cop her lolling on a garden-lounger on a sunny day with the light behind her, and were signs of wrong-side-of-the-blanket ginger-tom parenthood among the bluey-grey. And when it came to the nitty-gritty of camouflaging herself as a branch as she sat in a tree waiting to pounce on some unsuspecting sparrow, or stalking a mouse through the garden undergrowth, she was wily, vicious, cruel, and just as yobbish, as her fellow-moggies. We’ve even seen her whack a few foxes around the face when they’ve dared invade her space.
But there was a loving side to her, signs which showed as she grew older, and the other cats croaked. A flick of the landing light switch, and she’d be down the bed before I could say "pyjamas". She greeted every visitor, and when they left, she’d join us at the garden gate to say goodbye. Off for a walk? Ower Annie would trot along beside us. And she is the only cat I’ve know to be barred from a bar. It became her absolute right to accompany us to the nearby Fairholme Club, where she’d tour the grounds before settling down on the settee. One night, though, a member complained because she was allergic to cats. Ever after, we had to sneak out for a drink, and trust she wouldn’t follow.
Like all old stagers, whether they’re aristocratic or common as muck, her quality of life suffered over the past year. Though she ventured out, would hurtle back in and do what she should have done outside, inside. In the end, the dreaded cancer got her, and thanks to the gentle and sympathetic hand of a vet and nurse from the Scarsdale Veterinary Clinic, was put to sleep, on my knee, on her beloved kitchen sofa.
All signs of her existence were gone in half-an-hour. The cat-flap is locked. Anybody turning up with a fluffy kitten will go away with a cat flea in their ear. Annie Orgill has left the building. And we miss her like mad.
end
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