Christmas 1994

Stratton,
Cirencester,
Gloucs.,
GL7 2HT.

Tel. (0285) 650281

Hi! Folks!,
Yes, the major happening in the lives of the Irvings this year has been THE MOVE...........aaaaaaaaaagghh! Never again! Insane ramblings........ mutter.......mutter.......Of course, we say this every time - we’re absolute gluttons for punishment. Or it could be that we have short memories. Now, what was the reason we moved here............??
The problem was that Rupert, having reached the grand old age of 13, was due to be booted out of his super liberal but oh! - so - expensive prep. school. Thus, we had to find a senior school of the same ilk. And we came up with..........Cirencester Deer Park School. This is of course much cheaper - being a state school. But there was one small problem....... yes, you’ve guessed it!...........it being an extremely popular school the only way Rupert was ever going to get in was if we moved into the catchment ar ea. Total madness I hear you say - I rest my case!

Tamsin is now enjoying every minute of her freedom at the school that Rupert has just vacated. One term away and parents are just a distant memory ........sniff! sniff! (She loves us really - we hope!?). It’s actually quite hard on us parents left behind, as, contrary to popular opinion, we do actually miss the children when they are away..........honest!!!!!

Rupert has settled in to Deer Park extremely well, perhaps too well for his own good! So much to do - so little time - there is never ANY time for work! Lack of organisation I call it (a polite phrase for laziness - er - pause while I get strangled by irate young man .......aaaaagghh! gulp!). Deer Park is very hot on Expressive Arts and consequentially has a very good recording studio in the Music block - this is the centre of the universe for our dear Rupe! I think he is supposed to be training to be a music technician since the school pays him for what he loves doing (not bad, eh!).

Outside of school he is in the Parish Church choir (another thing he gets paid for!), he has his tennis lessons and cons us into taking him to ice hockey lessons in Swindon when his poor stressed-out parents actually find the time (WHAT TIME!!!!!!! - excuse me while I tear my hair out!). I suppose I ought to mention the drum kit lessons he has at school, and possibly the electric guitar lessons he thinks he is having next term. I think you probably may understand why we unfeeling parents are always yelling at him to do his homework. Now we understand the cryptic teacher-speak in his school reports whilst at boarding school!

Rupe loves returning to Edgarley (his ex boarding school) to see a particular friend of his who is lucky enough to live on the premises, being the son of a teacher there. Whilst we go to see Tamsin in her concerts, Rupert (+ friend) swan around the school using their musical instruments for jamming sessions as far as we can tell - nobody seems to mind! And then turning up in ripped jeans to the buffet afterwards, scoffing as much as possible - not worrying in the slightest! Rupe seems to be very much persona grata, even when everyone else is dressed smartly! That school is so wonderfully unstuffy - hence we still seem to be coughing up the fees, come hell or high water as the saying goes. (Do stop rambling , Joy, and get on with it!).

Tamsin seems to be doing amazingly well now, having settled in rather more quickly than Rupert did. This didn’t surprise us, since, not only had she visited the school many times, but she is better organised and sees the sense in doing her homework rather earlier than half an hour before it is due in!!! She still seems to fit in activities as diverse as gymnastics club, circus skills, pottery, and playing trumpet in the swing band and wind band. Next term she informs us that she wishes to start playing the saxophone as well! (suddenly I feel extremely lazy! DON’T SAY ANYTHING!!!).

Actually life is a bit hectic these days, especially Monday to Thursday when I work full-time. (I have rearranged my hours so that I can have Friday off, oh! bliss!). Tonight (Dec. 6th.) is the Deer Park Carol Concert in the Parish Church; the culmination of many hours of singing practice for yours truely and Rupe (yes, Rupe still sings soprano even though his voice has broken - he likes singing falsetto!). The only problem is that Tamsin has a concert on at the same time. Yes, you’ve guessed it! Bob is dashing over to Glastonbury on his own to see Tamsin play the trumpet. It can be incredibly difficult juggling parental time to be scrupulously fair to both children. But, sniff! sniff! nobody will be able to tell Rupe and I whether our efforts were worth it, groan! Oh! such sacrifice!

As I hinted at earlier, our move did not go smoothly - and you’re talking to experienced movers here! The day started well - we had packed everything ourselves over the previous few days and had unscrewed everything from walls - nothing could possibly go wrong, could it? It started to rain - a bad omen. Then the removal men turned up with only two small lorries. To be fair, we knew that Albion Street was narrow, so a large one would not have fitted. The first few gnawing doubts began...........they increased when we realised that there only ever seemed to be one bloke in the house at any one time and consequently the box loading was taking an eternity. We really could have shifted the stuff more quickly ourselves. Tamsin volunteered to spy on them and reported back that they seemed to be just sitting around smoking and having tea breaks - and we were paying for this! Oh! the frustration!

Lunch time came and went. Eventually they left for Cirencester (only 20 miles away) with another three quarters of a lorry load still left in the house. If they had not so badly underestimated and provided us with another lorry, the day could still have been salvaged. As it was, two journeys and lots of shuffling about of men, lorries and boxes, meant that we didn’t finally get rid of them until about 8p.m.! And that, folks, is where the story really began, of which more later! - Joy.

In the meantime, of course, I, Bob got all the exciting and meaningful bits, like sitting in the estate agents for best part of an hour waiting for the keys to our new house to be released to me because the ‘instantaneous’ funds transfer from our solicitor to their solicitor took three hours. There was no way they were going to let go of the keys on our solicitor’s word that he had sent the money, they wanted it in their hot, sticky little mitts! Then, of course, the lightning-fast lads with the removing vans had dared to go as far as the lay-by half-a-mile from the house, where they were having YET ANOTHER well-deserved smoke break to get over the trauma of the journey....

A jolly three-quarters of an hour was spent in happy shunting of vans up and down Albion St, before they were willing to admit that they might just unload something. So one van-load was hurriedly thrust into the house and the other left with a suitably dim, but muscular, idiot to unload, while they plodded back to Faringdon with the toy removal van, to fetch the rest of our possessions, which added up to almost another van-load.

As the light faded over the historic town of Faringdon and the last odds and sods were stuffed into the oversize minivan, my stomach over-ruled my brain in a disastrous decision. I gave the keys of the Cirencester house to the ring-leader of the removal gang and told him to go away and get on with it. And we have lived with the consequences of that decision ever since.....mostly in the form of things that are in totally the wrong room and which are too bulky to swap with the other things which are also in the wrong room without taking them all out and putting them all back in again. Most of these things are rolls of carpet. Some of them are boxes of books. Boxes of books have a lot in common with blocks of concrete. And in the mean time, they all get in the way while we try to sort some of the more interest ing features of the house out. (We did manage to heave the bed upstairs from the kitchen, eventually........phew! sweat! gasp! - Joy).

One of the interesting!? features is the cast-iron cooker-cum-central heating boiler called a Rayburn lurking in the corner of kitchen. We couldn’t get it to work. Either it took hours to raise enough heat to scramble an egg or it just went out! Thinking that it was faulty, we had it serviced. This revealed that apart from its main large chunks of cast iron and an odd burner or so, there was nothing to it. After the service, it still took ages to heat up. We got the service engineer to inspect it. He tweaked the gas control and pronounced the beast well. It got hotter a bit quicker but still went out if you turned it up suddenly. At this point, a revelation came!!!! Rayburns take ages to heat up!!! And go out if you turn them up suddenly!!! So now, Rupe turns it up (in two easy stages) so that by the time we come home, it is raring (?) to go.....

There is, of course, MUCH more to say upon the subject of houses, but we don’t wish to bore you - we’re bored ourselves.....yawn!
So lots of love to everyone, and ‘bye for now.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,
from
Joy, Bob, Tamsin & Rupert