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On Christmas Eve 1995, just a few days after my son Matthew had died, a robin landed in our garden, in the face of our (then) three cats, and numerous visiting felines, a potential war zone which hadn’t done much to encourage feathered friends over the years.
We called it Matt, as a tribute to a bird-loving son, and of course, in our grief, we acknowledged this as a sign that he’d come back to say he was free and happy – well, mothers are excused such potty notions at such times. Anyway, its arrival prompted the old man to dash off to the nearest garden centre for a bird table, rather than it feed off the floor with all those killer cats around waiting to pounce.
He visited daily, and I became quite besotted with the little creature for a couple of weeks. And then disaster struck. I was looking after grandson Jacob, then around six months old, and he was sleeping on the sofa when the phone rang. It was my niece, Cindy, calling with a buck-me-up chat. Suddenly, the cat flap rattled, and in darted the recently departed Annie, with, you’ve guessed it, the robin in her mouth.
I shrieked : "Annie’s got Matthew!", dropped the phone, Jacob woke up howling, Cindy was trembling at the other end of the line thinking either the baby had fallen off the sofa or Auntie Lou had witnessed a vision, and I was in hysterics on the stairs, trying to prise the bird from the jaws of hell – to no avail. The purpose of this little tale is to say that ever since then, we’ve never tempted birds into our garden, though we once saw a fox with a blackbird in its mouth, but that was the bird’s fault. It should have been in bed instead of nicking the night-time fox food.
But times change. Annie croaked a few weeks ago and took her 19-year-old creaking bones to that pilchard palace in the sky, and our garden has become, for the first time in nearly 40 years, a cat-free zone. It appears those wily old birds know this. Because they’ve come a’flocking. And, from the warmth and comfort of that wifely know-your-place – between the kitchen sink and the cooker – I’ve become a bit of a twitcher.
Okay, our back yard isn’t exactly on the migratory path between the Russian Steppes and the Sahara Desert, but I’m a very dedicated voyeur, and for all the world could be sitting in a remote hide, anorak, camera and binoculars in place, watching out for lesser-spotted whatevers. The fact that I don’t know a pied wagtail from a snow bunting is beside the point. The first two robins pecking at the proffered pastry are the stuff soppy old saddos like me are made of.
They’ve been followed by a bevvy of blackbirds, a virtual regiment of sparrows, a pair of thrushes, one Jenny wren, a couple of fat wood pigeons, and a noisy, belligerent scary magpie which I always salute, shout a loony : "Good morning, general" – just to be on the safe side – before nipping out in my nightie to chase him off.
I spend precious time when I could be doing something useful like cleaning the light switches or rustling up an imaginative soup, dreaming up nourishing, suet-and-dripping filled dishes for what are, on observation, a load of wimps and bullies of the bird world. In the current climate of ice and frost, who’s the dolt out there at 7 am, defrosting various bird baths and watering holes so that they can at least have a bath and a drink?
Their various characteristics are a constant source of amusement, concern, entertainment. Who needs murderous cats? And it certainly beats daytime telly.
end
Tuesday 27 January 2009
Friday 23 January 2009
Census
Well, that’s it then.
After years of telling family and friends that I am descended from French aristrocracy, the recently released on-line 1911 Census returns have brought me down to earth with an almighty crash.
It was the name, you see, Orgill, sounds exotic doesn’t it? There is an Orgeuil Castle in Jersey and the village of Orgill in the Lake District.
Now the myth has been well and truly exploded and I have been found out, thanks to this damned Census. Don’t ever go there; you will undoubtedly discover things from your family past, you would rather not know.
So, rather than having a claim to the French throne, I’ve found out I come from very humble beginnings in the back streets of Derby and Sheffield. I know now, for the first time in 65 years, that maternal granny got married twice, the second time to a "malleable iron machine moulder!" Uncle Charlie was a fetler, uncle Jim was a "picker-outer" on a rivet machine and uncle Tommy worked on a screwing machine. I do remember now, during my visits to the Sheffield family, that my uncles always seemed to be at home. That’s because they were union agitators, always bring their mates out on strike.
I take consolation in the fact that good old uncle Sam was a hero. He was a Lance Corporal in the Northumberland Fusiliers, was killed in 1915, and is commemmorated at the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial. Even my dear, late mum got it wrong. She always told me, proudly, that she was born in the same year that Queen Victoria died. It turns out that she was a year out.
All this really got me thinking about my funny family, so I delved in my dad’s side,and it didn’t get much better with the paternal search. Granddad Albert was an iron moulder in Loughborough, and granny Annie Eliza was "in service."
With the passage of time, one always retains a rosy-coloured opinion and memory of family members, which turn out to be completely misguided.
For instance, I was led to believe that uncle Arthur on my dad’s side was somewhat of a genius. Indeed, he made split cane fishing rods and even violins.
Column………….2
But he was also potty. When the rest of the family upset him, he would sit at the top of the stairs for hours playing his home-made violin. He never had a proper job. Apparently he obtained work at Bemrose the printers. After the first day, he returned home, said he wasn’t being told what to do, and never went to work again. And he kept his meagre Christmas decoration up all year round.
He spent the rest of his life looking after granny, who, herself, sat for hours in a rocking chair, occasionally sneaking a crafty nip from the whisky bottle secreted under an adjacent chest of drawers. The whole of the Orgill family, granddad, grandma, Doris, Anne, Arthur, Lilly May and dad Albert, lived in a tine terrace in Parliament Street, Derby, next door to St. Luke’s Church. They attended church at least twice on Sundays, and were members of the choir or church sidesmen.
They literally did have a very long table cloth, so that the table legs were not showing (yes, it really did happen), and my aunts would prepare the vegetables for Sunday lunch on a Saturday, so they did not have to work on the Sabbath.
All these reminiscences from a couple of clicks on the computer – you have to pay for it, by the way. So I’ve spent £25, only to find out that I am not who I think I am, can no longer preen about like Louis XV or whomever.
But, I’m sure I come from good, humble, yeoman stock, and I still proud of the lot of them.
After years of telling family and friends that I am descended from French aristrocracy, the recently released on-line 1911 Census returns have brought me down to earth with an almighty crash.
It was the name, you see, Orgill, sounds exotic doesn’t it? There is an Orgeuil Castle in Jersey and the village of Orgill in the Lake District.
Now the myth has been well and truly exploded and I have been found out, thanks to this damned Census. Don’t ever go there; you will undoubtedly discover things from your family past, you would rather not know.
So, rather than having a claim to the French throne, I’ve found out I come from very humble beginnings in the back streets of Derby and Sheffield. I know now, for the first time in 65 years, that maternal granny got married twice, the second time to a "malleable iron machine moulder!" Uncle Charlie was a fetler, uncle Jim was a "picker-outer" on a rivet machine and uncle Tommy worked on a screwing machine. I do remember now, during my visits to the Sheffield family, that my uncles always seemed to be at home. That’s because they were union agitators, always bring their mates out on strike.
I take consolation in the fact that good old uncle Sam was a hero. He was a Lance Corporal in the Northumberland Fusiliers, was killed in 1915, and is commemmorated at the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial. Even my dear, late mum got it wrong. She always told me, proudly, that she was born in the same year that Queen Victoria died. It turns out that she was a year out.
All this really got me thinking about my funny family, so I delved in my dad’s side,and it didn’t get much better with the paternal search. Granddad Albert was an iron moulder in Loughborough, and granny Annie Eliza was "in service."
With the passage of time, one always retains a rosy-coloured opinion and memory of family members, which turn out to be completely misguided.
For instance, I was led to believe that uncle Arthur on my dad’s side was somewhat of a genius. Indeed, he made split cane fishing rods and even violins.
Column………….2
But he was also potty. When the rest of the family upset him, he would sit at the top of the stairs for hours playing his home-made violin. He never had a proper job. Apparently he obtained work at Bemrose the printers. After the first day, he returned home, said he wasn’t being told what to do, and never went to work again. And he kept his meagre Christmas decoration up all year round.
He spent the rest of his life looking after granny, who, herself, sat for hours in a rocking chair, occasionally sneaking a crafty nip from the whisky bottle secreted under an adjacent chest of drawers. The whole of the Orgill family, granddad, grandma, Doris, Anne, Arthur, Lilly May and dad Albert, lived in a tine terrace in Parliament Street, Derby, next door to St. Luke’s Church. They attended church at least twice on Sundays, and were members of the choir or church sidesmen.
They literally did have a very long table cloth, so that the table legs were not showing (yes, it really did happen), and my aunts would prepare the vegetables for Sunday lunch on a Saturday, so they did not have to work on the Sabbath.
All these reminiscences from a couple of clicks on the computer – you have to pay for it, by the way. So I’ve spent £25, only to find out that I am not who I think I am, can no longer preen about like Louis XV or whomever.
But, I’m sure I come from good, humble, yeoman stock, and I still proud of the lot of them.
Tuesday 13 January 2009
Christmas presents
Peculiar presents have raised their weird and wonderful heads several times over the nigh-on forty years I’ve been writing a column for the Derby Telegraph.
Who can ever forget being on the receiving end of a chip pan, on Valentine’s Day, no less? No, neither can I, and his head came close to bearing a lifetime’s scars. Then there was the elegantly wrapped and massive parcel which housed a washing up bowl, dust-pan and hand-brush, but of course, it was all in jest, the thought that counts, because the brand name was Lucy. It’s times like that when you wish your mother had named you Ruby - a thought which will no doubt fall on stony ground.
And I won’t go into detail about the state-of-the-art steam floor mop. Suffice to say my hiss was louder than anything that wretched thing emitted in its short, damp, leaking life.
It goes without saying that when he comes bearing gifts, I approach the unwrapping with unease and trepidation. But it has to be said he come good this Christmas, even though the prezzie was encased in birthday paper. I’d suggested an handbag. And that’s what I got – a stylish and snazzy bit of kit, and just the right size, shape, with plenty of internal pockets, adjustable shoulder-strap, and not a nasty, cardi-catching, garish brass buckle in sight. It was, more or less, exactly the detail I’d written on the note as he headed to town, targeting Brindley’s, in Babington Lane – just the one-stop shop - for his annual, oh-so-exhausting, seasonal sortie. But not quite.
It’s a brown bag. I’d asked for black. But heck, with all those 50-per-cent-off sales, it’s been quite a doddle changing the wardrobe to match the bag.
It was, after all, probably the best Christmas we’ve had, spent in a luxury cottage in the Lake District with our little family, a few flocks of sheep, four horses, cattle lowing in a lowly cattle shed, and a farm cat called Pebbles which adopted us for the week, and had to be turfed off the four-poster several times a day.
The place, all log fires and oak beams, had been festively festooned by the owners, complete with twinkling Christmas tree. Son and daughter-in-law Simon and Claire took over the kitchen, the cleaning, the cooking, and the driving, so all we had to do was wander the lanes in the cold and frosty air, indulge Jacob and Grace with grand-parental fun and games, and languish, under a big, star-filled sky, in an enormous outdoor hot-tub. Indeed, the most strenuous contribution I made was mashing the left-over veg for Boxing Day’s bubble-and-squeak. (Memo: omit the runner beans in future – they’re more fork-bending than mash-able).
Back at Orgill Towers, to a pile of presents too big to cart with us, he came into his own. Niece and nephew-in-law Cindy and Steve Alcock’s parcel contained a mushroom growing kit. It kept himself quiet until well into the New Year as he fiddled with spawned mushroom compost, casing peat, growing tray, and misting spray – not included, but hey, let’s jettison this EeZee-Orange Degreaser container with the squirty top, wash it out, fill it with water, and hey presto……stick the soggy mass down the cellar.
The step-by-step instructions, which he is following diligently, promise three mushroom "harvests" within two to three weeks of each other. Well-meaning friends who’ve been there, done that, devoured the mushroom soup, reckon they all come at once, and since, as they say, life is too short to stuff a mushroom, I’m at a loss to know what to do with the glut come reaping time.
Cindy and Steve claim they chose the gift because we’re the only people they know with a cellar. That, coupled with an uncle with a penchant for peculiar presents…..
Who can ever forget being on the receiving end of a chip pan, on Valentine’s Day, no less? No, neither can I, and his head came close to bearing a lifetime’s scars. Then there was the elegantly wrapped and massive parcel which housed a washing up bowl, dust-pan and hand-brush, but of course, it was all in jest, the thought that counts, because the brand name was Lucy. It’s times like that when you wish your mother had named you Ruby - a thought which will no doubt fall on stony ground.
And I won’t go into detail about the state-of-the-art steam floor mop. Suffice to say my hiss was louder than anything that wretched thing emitted in its short, damp, leaking life.
It goes without saying that when he comes bearing gifts, I approach the unwrapping with unease and trepidation. But it has to be said he come good this Christmas, even though the prezzie was encased in birthday paper. I’d suggested an handbag. And that’s what I got – a stylish and snazzy bit of kit, and just the right size, shape, with plenty of internal pockets, adjustable shoulder-strap, and not a nasty, cardi-catching, garish brass buckle in sight. It was, more or less, exactly the detail I’d written on the note as he headed to town, targeting Brindley’s, in Babington Lane – just the one-stop shop - for his annual, oh-so-exhausting, seasonal sortie. But not quite.
It’s a brown bag. I’d asked for black. But heck, with all those 50-per-cent-off sales, it’s been quite a doddle changing the wardrobe to match the bag.
It was, after all, probably the best Christmas we’ve had, spent in a luxury cottage in the Lake District with our little family, a few flocks of sheep, four horses, cattle lowing in a lowly cattle shed, and a farm cat called Pebbles which adopted us for the week, and had to be turfed off the four-poster several times a day.
The place, all log fires and oak beams, had been festively festooned by the owners, complete with twinkling Christmas tree. Son and daughter-in-law Simon and Claire took over the kitchen, the cleaning, the cooking, and the driving, so all we had to do was wander the lanes in the cold and frosty air, indulge Jacob and Grace with grand-parental fun and games, and languish, under a big, star-filled sky, in an enormous outdoor hot-tub. Indeed, the most strenuous contribution I made was mashing the left-over veg for Boxing Day’s bubble-and-squeak. (Memo: omit the runner beans in future – they’re more fork-bending than mash-able).
Back at Orgill Towers, to a pile of presents too big to cart with us, he came into his own. Niece and nephew-in-law Cindy and Steve Alcock’s parcel contained a mushroom growing kit. It kept himself quiet until well into the New Year as he fiddled with spawned mushroom compost, casing peat, growing tray, and misting spray – not included, but hey, let’s jettison this EeZee-Orange Degreaser container with the squirty top, wash it out, fill it with water, and hey presto……stick the soggy mass down the cellar.
The step-by-step instructions, which he is following diligently, promise three mushroom "harvests" within two to three weeks of each other. Well-meaning friends who’ve been there, done that, devoured the mushroom soup, reckon they all come at once, and since, as they say, life is too short to stuff a mushroom, I’m at a loss to know what to do with the glut come reaping time.
Cindy and Steve claim they chose the gift because we’re the only people they know with a cellar. That, coupled with an uncle with a penchant for peculiar presents…..
Christmas presents
Lucy’s column for Jan 13th
Preslo…1
Peculiar presents have raised their weird and wonderful heads several times over the nigh-on forty years I’ve been writing a column for the Derby Telegraph.
Who can ever forget being on the receiving end of a chip pan, on Valentine’s Day, no less? No, neither can I, and his head came close to bearing a lifetime’s scars. Then there was the elegantly wrapped and massive parcel which housed a washing up bowl, dust-pan and hand-brush, but of course, it was all in jest, the thought that counts, because the brand name was Lucy. It’s times like that when you wish your mother had named you Ruby - a thought which will no doubt fall on stony ground.
And I won’t go into detail about the state-of-the-art steam floor mop. Suffice to say my hiss was louder than anything that wretched thing emitted in its short, damp, leaking life.
It goes without saying that when he comes bearing gifts, I approach the unwrapping with unease and trepidation. But it has to be said he come good this Christmas, even though the prezzie was encased in birthday paper. I’d suggested an handbag. And that’s what I got – a stylish and snazzy bit of kit, and just the right size, shape, with plenty of internal pockets, adjustable shoulder-strap, and not a nasty, cardi-catching, garish brass buckle in sight. It was, more or less, exactly the detail I’d written on the note as he headed to town, targeting Brindley’s, in Babington Lane – just the one-stop shop - for his annual, oh-so-exhausting, seasonal sortie. But not quite.
It’s a brown bag. I’d asked for black. But heck, with all those 50-per-cent-off sales, it’s been quite a doddle changing the wardrobe to match the bag.
It was, after all, probably the best Christmas we’ve had, spent in a luxury cottage in the Lake District with our little family, a few flocks of sheep, four horses, cattle lowing in a lowly cattle shed, and a farm cat called Pebbles which adopted us for the week, and had to be turfed off the four-poster several times a day.
The place, all log fires and oak beams, had been festively festooned by the owners, complete with twinkling Christmas tree. Son and daughter-in-law Simon and Claire took over the kitchen, the cleaning, the cooking, and the driving, so all we had to do was wander the lanes in the cold and frosty air, indulge Jacob and Grace with grand-parental fun and games, and languish, under a big, star-filled sky, in an enormous outdoor hot-tub. Indeed, the most strenuous contribution I made was mashing the left-over veg for Boxing Day’s bubble-and-squeak. (Memo: omit the runner beans in future – they’re more fork-bending than mash-able).
Back at Orgill Towers, to a pile of presents too big to cart with us, he came into his own. Niece and nephew-in-law Cindy and Steve Alcock’s parcel contained a mushroom growing kit. It kept himself quiet until well into the New Year as he fiddled with spawned mushroom compost, casing peat, growing tray, and misting spray – not included, but hey, let’s jettison this EeZee-Orange Degreaser container with the squirty top, wash it out, fill it with water, and hey presto……stick the soggy mass down the cellar.
The step-by-step instructions, which he is following diligently, promise three mushroom "harvests" within two to three weeks of each other. Well-meaning friends who’ve been there, done that, devoured the mushroom soup, reckon they all come at once, and since, as they say, life is too short to stuff a mushroom, I’m at a loss to know what to do with the glut come reaping time.
Cindy and Steve claim they chose the gift because we’re the only people they know with a cellar. That, coupled with an uncle with a penchant for peculiar presents…..
Preslo…1
Peculiar presents have raised their weird and wonderful heads several times over the nigh-on forty years I’ve been writing a column for the Derby Telegraph.
Who can ever forget being on the receiving end of a chip pan, on Valentine’s Day, no less? No, neither can I, and his head came close to bearing a lifetime’s scars. Then there was the elegantly wrapped and massive parcel which housed a washing up bowl, dust-pan and hand-brush, but of course, it was all in jest, the thought that counts, because the brand name was Lucy. It’s times like that when you wish your mother had named you Ruby - a thought which will no doubt fall on stony ground.
And I won’t go into detail about the state-of-the-art steam floor mop. Suffice to say my hiss was louder than anything that wretched thing emitted in its short, damp, leaking life.
It goes without saying that when he comes bearing gifts, I approach the unwrapping with unease and trepidation. But it has to be said he come good this Christmas, even though the prezzie was encased in birthday paper. I’d suggested an handbag. And that’s what I got – a stylish and snazzy bit of kit, and just the right size, shape, with plenty of internal pockets, adjustable shoulder-strap, and not a nasty, cardi-catching, garish brass buckle in sight. It was, more or less, exactly the detail I’d written on the note as he headed to town, targeting Brindley’s, in Babington Lane – just the one-stop shop - for his annual, oh-so-exhausting, seasonal sortie. But not quite.
It’s a brown bag. I’d asked for black. But heck, with all those 50-per-cent-off sales, it’s been quite a doddle changing the wardrobe to match the bag.
It was, after all, probably the best Christmas we’ve had, spent in a luxury cottage in the Lake District with our little family, a few flocks of sheep, four horses, cattle lowing in a lowly cattle shed, and a farm cat called Pebbles which adopted us for the week, and had to be turfed off the four-poster several times a day.
The place, all log fires and oak beams, had been festively festooned by the owners, complete with twinkling Christmas tree. Son and daughter-in-law Simon and Claire took over the kitchen, the cleaning, the cooking, and the driving, so all we had to do was wander the lanes in the cold and frosty air, indulge Jacob and Grace with grand-parental fun and games, and languish, under a big, star-filled sky, in an enormous outdoor hot-tub. Indeed, the most strenuous contribution I made was mashing the left-over veg for Boxing Day’s bubble-and-squeak. (Memo: omit the runner beans in future – they’re more fork-bending than mash-able).
Back at Orgill Towers, to a pile of presents too big to cart with us, he came into his own. Niece and nephew-in-law Cindy and Steve Alcock’s parcel contained a mushroom growing kit. It kept himself quiet until well into the New Year as he fiddled with spawned mushroom compost, casing peat, growing tray, and misting spray – not included, but hey, let’s jettison this EeZee-Orange Degreaser container with the squirty top, wash it out, fill it with water, and hey presto……stick the soggy mass down the cellar.
The step-by-step instructions, which he is following diligently, promise three mushroom "harvests" within two to three weeks of each other. Well-meaning friends who’ve been there, done that, devoured the mushroom soup, reckon they all come at once, and since, as they say, life is too short to stuff a mushroom, I’m at a loss to know what to do with the glut come reaping time.
Cindy and Steve claim they chose the gift because we’re the only people they know with a cellar. That, coupled with an uncle with a penchant for peculiar presents…..
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