Christmas 2000

41 Albion Street,
Stratton,
Cirencester,
Gloucs.
GL7 2HT.
3.12.00.

Greetings Dearly Beloved,

T’was a cold and stormy night, as she sat with fingers poised over the keyboard, pondering the mysteries of life, the universe, and what the Irvings did this year.......brain cells struggling into life - I canna get any more power, cap’n, she’s gonna blow!......Quick! more dilithium crystals!.........

Ah! Autumn - season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, sunlight dappling through the trees, cold, crunchy grass, bright red leaves, blackberries, and ..........sploosh! sploosh! gurgle! gurgle! squidge! squidge! squelch! squelch! drip! drip! ..........no, not Rupert having an unaccustomed shower, but the intrepid Irvings commuting to work through the rising floodwaters........... aaaaggghhhh!!!... where’s the (expletive) road gone??!! ‘Lake Burford’, alias the flood plain of the River Windrush, has returned, to trap a pathetic band of sheep on the narrow strip of land between the river and the flooded valley, all standing in single file like commuters waiting for a bus! (Actually, they could’ve all turned round and walked to safety along the ridge to where the land was higher - sigh! Sheep!!). Next day, they’d gone - must’ve caught the bus after all - no wonder Oxford’s so crowded! Baaa! Baaa! Baaa!

Enough of now, let the mind drift to warmer climes and times. Could it really be only three months ago that we uncomplainingly found ourselves trapped in France. Hooray! we all shouted, after the fishermen’s blockade of the ports was lifted only a day before we were due to go to France. Boo! as we realized that the window of opportunity that allowed us to escape over the Channel, had well and truly closed behind us just as we arrived at our destination in the south of France. The fuel strike had started! It did take a couple of days for us to notice - the T.V. pictures showing people hoarding fuel should’ve been a dead giveaway, as should the casual comment from Tamsin ‘I think there’s a fuel strike or something’. But no, the brain cell(s) didn’t manage to process this information until the Monday (I guess they’d gone over to holiday mode). No diesel! Aaaaggghhh! panic! panic! was our initial reaction! After an initial half-hearted attempt at trying to find a garage with diesel (everyone in France seems to run their car on diesel - it’s so cheap compared with here), we accepted the inevitable, and used the car only for shopping for food - our holiday cottage was in the middle of nowhere!

Our holiday was one of enforced idleness, but mostly we weren’t complaining, especially after we’d been to the Sunday market at St. Antonin. Staggering twice under the weight of excess to the car, we were forced to sample the delights of the local café en route - it was all too much! - the heat! the food! the drink! We just had to sample all the cheeses, all the local red wine, herbs, spices, olives, olive oil, bread, local vegetables, home-made pastries - such markets do not exist anymore in Britain - it makes one realize just what has been lost here, and why supermarkets are not that popular in France! We hadn’t really been prepared for all the English voices - we were told that around 50,000 English people lived in the Tarn and Tarn et Garonne areas, enough to support an English bookshop in St. Antonin - unbelievable! We did seem to manage an awful lot more reading this holiday - that is, when we weren’t preoccupied with trying to obtain ‘the right sort of ‘phone card’ for use in the cottage. This involved sending Rupert out on his mountain bike (such forethought, eh!) into the scorching heat to scour the local villages for such a thing, and other essential food-type items (parents’ perogative, owing to greater age and infirmity!), while the rest of us sipped ice-cold menthe à l’eau to the accompaniment of fans on full power - phew! sweat! sweat!

Reading the House Book of previous folks’ experiences, we just had to try canoeing on the Aveyron River - after all, if an eight-year-old could do it...............! Having found our way to the recommended canoeing company, dressed up in all the possible safety equipment, and struggled to remember everything we were told in broken English about the characteristics of each set of rapids, and what to do at weirs, we gingerly boarded (!) our canoe .............and commenced going round in circles ........ an inauspicious start! Tamsin, meanwhile, was half way to the distant bend in the river in her kayak! After a little while, having swapped seats, and been issued with further instructions in how to use the oars properly - much heavenward rolling of eyeballs, and interesting (?) gesticulations from the shore - the intrepid explorers were finally on their epic journey into the ‘great unknown’. The words ‘we haven’t lost anyone yet’ floated reassuringly over the æther towards us - but, we thought, they haven’t bargained for the total incompetency of the Irvings - ha! Paddling along peacefully admiring the view, being slightly overwhelmed by our smallness and the height of the gorge, a cold panic gripped the throat as suddenly before us lay ........THE FIRST WEIR!! aaaarrrrgggghhhh! What do we do here? Is this the one where we have to stick our paddles out to slow us down so that we don’t get stuck on the rocks? Too late! Whoosh, down we go..o..o..o......!!! Quick, stick your oar out! Turn the boat round! Bump! Bump! Clunk! .......Oh! dear! Error! Error! Appraise situation. River quite shallow. Joy gets feet wet. Boots fill up with cold water, ugh! With a flurry of oars and feet, much cursing, and sweat pouring from brows, the unsinkable (mostly!) boat slides off the rocks, phew! ‘Was this wise?’ we ask ourselves, ‘Will we make the 10 kilometres?’ Tamsin, meanwhile, was out of sight ........

Over the next three hours, we alternated between blind panic, much cursing, getting VERY wet, and calm periods of drinking in the glorious view (including nude sunbathers), and wishing we had some Kendal Mint Cake - the old bodies just weren’t responding to our demands, tisk! tisk! Suddenly, we rounded a bend, and spotted a familiar figure sitting on the bank with her kayak, having already read the complete works of Shakespeare and planned out her whole life whilst waiting for us. At last, thought poor old knackered Bob, who desperately needed a fuel injection, the end is in sight! ......Not quite!! ...... We headed in towards the bank, hoping to avoid what looked like the Victoria Falls ahead! Unfortunately, we got ourselves stuck on rocks (surprise! surprise!), giving the canoe-hirer a chance to get to us and free us, so that the force of the water took us, and ............ Oh! my God! ......It’s a shear drop!! ...... We’re going to get VERY WET!!! ........ aaaaarrrrgggghhh!!! ....... A feeling of overwhelming panic seized us, followed, on my part, by such an exhilarating high, and on Bob’s part, by ‘Wow! we’re still alive!’ It transpired later that Tamsin was allowed to escape this ordeal! I would love to do it again - I’m not sure about Bob!

We’ve skipped over describing our cottage...... Not yer axshull stone-built quaint little medieval one, this! More your two huge octagonal wooden domes glued together.... with mezzanine sleeping platform and vast pot plants winding up internal pillars, star-shaped window at the top of the roof, a bathroom with windows on three sides so that the surrounding (non-existent!) population got a good view of you at your ablutes! and matching octagonal garage. Having found on the internet something called ‘The Zome’, with accompanying picture, we just couldn’t resist. I believe it was an idea that originated in California in the 1970’s, very spiritual and Buddhist, designed with communal living in mind, which is reflected in the open plan living and sleeping areas, diamond-shaped windows, and reinforced by the artifacts in the cottage, and the uplifting poems everywhere. A very interesting house, where the outside is very much part of the living area (but then, they’ve got the climate for it!). And boy, was it hot! - we really needed the fans, and this was September!

Interestingly, because we were forced into spending more time at the cottage than we planned, we concerned ourselves with the plight of a colony of bees that lived in the general vicinity of the garage / wood pile. Underneath an overhang was a large pot of water filled to the brim, where bees were precariously balancing around the edge, drinking. If we didn’t keep this pot filled to the brim every day, then lots of bees would fall in and drown, so it was our mission to save as many as possible! It was noticeable that wasps were not so adept at this balancing act, and many drowned - yippee! When a cool day arrived, just after a thunderstorm on our last night, there was not a bee to be found - I guess they had other water sources now. Just when we’d grown accustomed to bees buzzing around our heads (we weren’t on anything, really!), there was this eerie silence! Apart from the miowing of the resident cat, who had decided NOT to be moody just as we were leaving - perhaps it was pretty thankful we were going - at last! I guess it just didn’t like being ignored!

Rupert spent his time alternating between doing his A-level Music project (this being one week before college started, note), and cycling through the countryside to visit with the English guy who let out the cottage, and his friends who were travellers. Trust Rupert to home in on someone with illicit substances! It was from these people that we got progress reports on the fuel strike, and where, or not, we were likely to get diesel - oh! the rumours were rife! Each message passed on by Rupert sowed little seeds of worry in our minds......... What could be used as a diesel substitute? Would it ruin our engine? Should we try to make it to the Spanish border? The previous strike lasted a month, and then even the bread started to run out! (Contrast that with the English, when bread ran out in 3 days! - Not a lot of panic buying, except fuel, went on in France - they’re so used to strikes!).

Even though the weather was hot, I foolishly made the suggestion that we should undertake a round trip, on foot, to a local Bastide village called Bruniquel, which was one of a number of such villages perched on a high bluff looking down on the Aveyron river. The cottage had some local maps of footpaths through the surrounding scrub-oak forest, and so we set off at about 3pm., on what was to become quite an adventure! It started off quite well, as we walked down to the river along a path we had been along the day before. We hoped to visit a cave marked on the map as the ‘Grotte de la Madeleine’, which was the home in pre-historic times of the Magdalene people, who did many cave paintings in the region. When we arrived nearby at what was an old Templar house, we came upon a group of people who appeared to be breaking in! It turned out that they were working for the ‘Dandelion Trust’, an organization dedicated to taking on any project that has been abandoned by other organizations, of whatever nature. They were breaking in because old houses are often abandoned in rural areas of France, complete with tools and other kit, and they were hoping for this to be the case here, so that they could be used in the restoration effort. Apart from doing up this mediæval Templar house, they were also looking after the cave! We were shown photos of the paintings in the cave, which had been boarded up awaiting restoration and proper scientific evaluation, and these were beautiful rare paintings of pregnant women, and pregnant animals. Since it is almost unheard of for women to be represented in cave paintings, it is possible that women actually painted these, which is exciting! We were shown the way to the cave, and, even though we weren’t allowed in, there was another cave with a hand carving at its entrance, so we didn’t go away disappointed! Thanking them for their time, we proceeded on our walk to Bruniquel, about 6 km. distant. It was interesting that we were asked in English by a Frenchman, if we wanted a lift in his car! It must have been SO obvious that we were English - the umbrella held aloft as a sunshade was a dead giveaway!! Did the trick, though! I came back as pallid as I left! So, I like being pale and interesting! Bob thought it was funny that I marched along very speedily along the flat, but as soon as there was a slight rise, yours truely rapidly became breathless! Well, I AM a flatlander from Lincolnshire - that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it! Unfit! Me! Never!! Walking makes you notice the oddest scenes. Along the road we heard a noise and happened to look up to see someone building what appeared to be a wall outside a cave halfway up the shear cliff - must be a crazy English, we thought!

As we hove to around a bend we saw the twin towers of Bruniquel high above us. Thoughts passed through our heads such as ‘Bugger me, how are we going to make it up there?’ Good job all French villages have cafés. Stocked up on more menthe à l’eau, whilst letting the old feet steam!! Phew! The village was very pretty, and being restored, a lot of the buidings being mediæval, but not too overtouristified. It appears a lot of Bastide villages have mediæval buildings simply because of poverty, there has been no money to build new buildings, and people just live in the old, only repairing when absolutely necessary. Whilst we were doing our tourist bit, we kept coming across this French tourist acting so strangely we thought he was English! Just as we turned the corner of yet another narrow alley, there he was, rushing madly from building to castle to old picturesque ruin, as fast as he could go, snapping photos, looking at his watch constantly! - the rabbit in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ sprang to mind - we kept expecting him to be muttering ‘Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!’ He didn’t have large ears, though!

As the light was getting rather low to be taking any more photos, a dawning realization passed like a wave across the brain cells - aaarrrggghhh! We haven’t yet gone through the forest! What about the wild boar? (Another rumour emanating from Rupert’s traveller acquaintances - but possibly true). Will we meet Little Red Riding Hood or the Big Bad Wolf? Well ............almost! This fairytale metaphore is getting to me - cackle! cackle! The beedy eyes staring out as us from the gloom. ‘What big eyes you’ve got, Grandma!’ Hurrying along, pausing only to re-fuel, we got about three-quarters of the way home, when it became increasingly difficult to see the footpath signs and we took a wrong turning (but we didn’t realize this, gentle reader). The deafening noise of cicadas and the rustling in the undergrowth jarred the nerves. Quiver! Quiver! Unspoken thoughts of wild boar passed between us. Who turned up the cicadas’ volume knob? Suddenly, we saw a light! Saved! Knock! Knock! Is that you, Grandma? Just as Bob was delicately negotiating his way around a rather large soppy dog (Hound of the Baskervilles, it wasn’t!), preparing to ask where we were in French, we discovered that they were in fact.......yes, you’ve guessed it! .......more emigré English! That fanciful figure of 50,000 English in the area, probably isn’t so fanciful, after all! I guess they just never went home after the Hundred Years War! (As an aside, we went to a son et lumière show at another Bastide village on the Aveyron, called Penne, and were treated to a full 2000 year history of the area, managing to get the general gist of it even though it was in French! It did help to know a bit about French history first, though.).

I think the conversation that passed between us and the occupants of the-house-in-the-middle-of-the-forest, might as well have been in French, as, after setting off confidently, well, semi-confidently, into the gloom, what we thought was the right path, wasn’t. Panic set in when our torch went dead, and I twisted my foot falling into a large pothole! Stiff upper lip quivering, we made it back to the house, finding out exactly where we had gone wrong on the map (should’ve done that before!), were preparing to set off once more into the gloom, when an offer was made to us that we couldn’t refuse - they offered us a lift! Actually we weren’t far away from home at all! Apparently, they’d had many walkers pass by having taken a wrong turning just where we did, as the Grande Randonnée (err... National Footpath?) was wrongly marked on the map - oh great! Thanks, world! Joyously (?) reunited with Tamsin and Rupert, who, naturally, had NOT prepared any food for our home-coming, we all proceeded to get very merry on some good red wine - yeah! - and I forgot the pain in my foot (and a lot else besides!).

Another of those rumours arrived home with Rupert, the following day, to the effect that the fuel strike was over - YES! Now we can rush out and spend! spend! SPEND! Throwing caution to the wind, we decided to blow some of our remaining stock of precious fuel (having not been able to find any yet - but what the hell!) and drive out to Cordes-sur-ciel, which was supposed to be quaint with steep narrow streets. Quaint it might be, crammed with expensive little shops it certainly was! And, on the hottest day of our holiday, Joy was sucked into a knitwear boutique and compelled by irresistible forces to buy a mohair coat of such winter warmth that the rest of the party dissolved into little pools of sweat just looking at it!! Tams attempted to regain her childhood (such a long time ago!!!) by buying simple wooden toys from a simple wooden toyshop. Me, Bob, I got a consolation glass of menthe à l’eau.......(sigh!).

That evening, our little ears pricked up as familiar sounds penetrated the æther. We glanced up at the T.V. .......aaarrrgghh! no! ........not an ENGLISH fuel strike! Just as we were going home! How deeply inconsiderate! From the frying pan into the fire! Ho! hum! Arriving at Dieppe, cramming every last drop of diesel into the car, we resigned ourselves to another week of not going anywhere, and having a good laugh at all the mad antics of panic buyers on the English side of the Channel!

Rupert went back to college for yet another year (sigh!) - it really will be his last this time (though I’m sure I say this every year!). A-level results arrived: Rupert arrived at college to be greeted by his relieved-looking Electronics tutor muttering something like ‘So miracles DO happen!’ Shock! Faint! Thump! Parents in catatonic state of disbelief! Rupert managed an ‘E’ grade - he actually passed! Now we shall await with semi-bated breath the outcome of his Music and Photography this year. Rupert has had a busy year at college, being President of the Student Union - organizing band nights, college balls, etc., and attending Governors’ Meetings (being President means you get to be a College Governor), which means he has to gather all the disparate views of the students, and stand up for their rights. He’s actually learning a lot about negotiation, organization and working with a team (and the attendant stresses!). The down side is the increasing tobacco-related activity!! Still, we hardly ever see him, as he appears to be in six million bands, and they all need band rehearsals............!

Tamsin had an equally stressful year when it came to all those deadlines for handing in course-work for the GCSE’s. Aaaarrrrgghh!! The wailing and gnashing of teeth, the tearing out of hair, being driven to drink (mmmm! nice! gimme more!) - Er.... that’s us ....not Tamsin!! She did really well, considering that her school insist on making all kids do 11 or more GCSE’s. She did 12, which I feel is just too much pressure - we only did 8 - who says standards are lower these days? She managed an ‘A’ in Double Science (that’s the equivalent of 2 GCSE’s), Maths, and German; a ‘B’ in Eng. Lang., Eng. Lit., French, Humanities, Music and Art, a ‘C’ in History, and the disastrous ‘D’ in Design, which she doesn’t like to talk about! She’s now doing Chemistry, Biology, Music and Art for AS-level this year. She appears to be a whizz at Chemistry, though she keeps telling me she doesn’t feel any great passion for it. If you have a talent, don’t knock it, I tell her! Music as an activity still inspires Tamsin, though I think she feels less than inspired with Music as an area of study! She’s still in the Gloucestershire Youth Jazz Orchestra, playing her trumpet, and this has led her into the ever-spiralling-downward path of all jazz musicians - booze-ridden sessions in smoky German clubs on tour!! She also does ‘guest appearances’ singing with college rock bands when they can be persuaded to play her sort of songs. Unlike Rupe, Tams can’t wait to go to university........ just a pity that she can’t decide what to do when she gets there!!! For some reason, they both seem to be attracted to Manchester.......... !!???

For Joy, it’s not so much what she’s done THIS year, but what she’s foolishly agreed to do NEXT year!!! Joy has been asked to talk in February to a HUGE assembly (about 30!!) of museum folk at the Natural History Museum in London, on the prevention and treatment of pyrite decay in minerals. Much biting of finger nails! Outbursts of maniacal laughter - cackle! cackle! And it’s still only December ........... (gulp!). Actually, we almost lost her to the North Sea in April when a large wave came splooshing over the sea-front at Scarborough just as she emerged from a conference hall to step into a taxi!!! (Sea water and lots of tiny ice crystals dripping slowly down my face - mmm! tasty! - squelch! squelch! - as I drip into the taxi! Much cursing from taxi driver! - Joy.) The rest of the time she has spent keeping the Post Office in business by ordering clothes from catalogues and sending them back (the ‘Does my bum look big in this?’ syndrome). She has succcessfully driven her decorating staff (mad??) through a major upgrade of the bathroom - eat your heart out, Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen!! At last! the black Aspergillus mould has been beaten back forever ............... or has it! ......... (cue evil maniacal laughter..... heh! heh! heh! heh! heh! ............?!).

I, Bob, have had a quiet year after the initial damp (but remunerative) squib of the Year 2000 computer problem. I think I’ve spent more time moving office than actually working. The only excitement (?) was working with a horde of highly-paid consultants on a new exciting Blackwell’s website to sell books to students. Would have been more exciting if students actually bought books!!!! Thanks to this, I am now re-training myself frantically in preparation for my redundancy in March next year. Ho hum, either I leave, or Blackwells leave me.... Their finances don’t look healthy to me!! Anyway. log on to ‘maps.blackwell.co.uk’ where my bit allows you to select a little chunk of Ordnance Survey map to be printed out. I’m still mourning over the departure of our old VW Passat, which failed its test in June, and had to be replaced by a rather bland Golf. The Passat had done 199,827 miles but I didn’t have the nerve to drive it illegally to make the 200,000!!

This letter is getting far too silly. I order it to stop right now. Phew! everyone thinks - at long last! Time to stuff it in lots of little envelopes and send it winging its way to all of you lucky (?) recipients.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Lots of Christmas Greetings, hugs and kisses to you all. xxxxxxxxxxxxx