Christmas 2007

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

November / December 2007

Yuletide Greetings to one and all!

Twelve leaves a-falling, eleven winds-a-howling, ten sheep-a-leaping .. (?) .. er .. pardon? … shouldn’t that be lords … them, too! “Like … er … wow! …. powerful mushrooms, man!” “Holy leaping sheep, Batman!” BOINNGG! “Time for bed” said Zebedee! Greetings from the autumnal Cotswolds, where the sheep have highs and the weather lows, and monkeys chew tobacco … erm … (!) …. what!!? (I blame the mushrooms – Bob).

After several months of covetously eyeing up the big sheep with curly horns and frizzy wool at the end of the road, I am now their woolly equal … baa! baa! (thinks : “.. grass .. sheep nuts .. mushrooms?!! ..”). Chemotherapy equals wavy, woolly hair (OK.. ish) … and wavy, woolly brain cell …. (?) .. “Er … what did you say my name was, again?” Two years (according to a radiographer) is how long it may take before the old brain cell notices that it has neighbours to communicate with. Will being in virtual solitary confinement à la Guantanamo cause complete breakdown? …. Would I even notice? ….. “Oh, put her out of her misery, someone!” “No! No! I’m too young too die!” “Aaarrgghh!” ….crash! … thump! ….

This year has been ‘an awfully big adventure’ (for some of the pea plants, that is!) …. down at the allotment. Yes, I know! Little things …… (sigh!). We managed to grow the odd pea, weeds, the odd bean, more weeds, chard, even bigger weeds, rhubarb, gigantic weeds, a share of some damsons and blackberries ….. cough! choke! ….. “it was the weeds what did it, guv!” … thud! … expire …..! The best crop of all was the waving grass ….. now … if we had a sheep …. Towards the end of October, the weed police from the Bathhurst Estate sent a missive to Eve, our next-door-neighbour, and fellow allotmentee, accusing her of the heinous crimes of subcontracting out her plot and growing a hay meadow. “Death’s too good for her!” “Burn her! Burn her! “ Oops! sorry! … crossed wires with ‘The Wicker Man’. We hurriedly (!) turned over our third of the plot, Eve ran a lawnmower over the rest and hacked at the blackberry briar, with the result that we appear to have won a reprieve. We live to dig another year!

As hinted at earlier, the cancer ‘treatment’ est finis – I’m now so full of evil chemicals that I could qualify as a hazardous waste dump, not to mention the ‘glow-in-the-dark’ boob, and the sudden affinity I feel with hill-sheep after Chernobyl! …… “Woke up dis mornin’, dun got those slaughter-house blues real bad …..”. After the not-so-pleasant, long-drawn-out chemical warfare, the radiation was a doddle! Every other day for six weeks during April / May, I waited for the bus, talked to neighbours I hadn’t seen for ages, got to know every inch of Cotswold countryside between Cirencester and Cheltenham (very beautiful), got through a fair bit of reading … spent a few minutes being cooked, especially in the last week … “ouch!” … turned black … waited for the bus … watched the foliage become thicker … “Bugger! … can’t see the sheep for the trees” … past the allotments … home again, home again, jiggety jig! On the plus side, I can now design a mean hat out of a turban, a scarf and a belt (a girl’s gotta have standards, y’know!). On the down side, the specificity of global warming in a very local context (?), or a lack of HRT, means that with monotonous regularity, I erupt like Old Faithful (aargh! steam! steam!) … and I need my eight hours worth ….. yawn … zzzz! …. “Uh … letter …What letter?”. Tamoxifen … ha! you wouldn’t want to go there! Suffice it to say that the above problems have been compounded ten fold by this insignificant little pill …. ah, but I shouldn’t be too hard on it, it is supposed to be preventing the return of …. (gulp!) … the evil one!!!

Quote of the day from the Christmas pudding maker in the kitchen : “It’s easier to get carried away on a lemon….” …. (??) … (Bob).

The smaller of our two treasures, otherwise known as Tamsin, spent a year at home being broke, and working at a nursery school for at least a couple of afternoons a week, filling in for the times when they didn’t have quite enough staff to cover. The owners of this business appeared on the surface to be as straight as they come, but we should have twigged that if they were prepared to employ Tamsin, with her semi-bleached, dreadlocked, be-ribboned, be-wooled (?) hair, then all was not as it seemed ….. (more later).

An ‘individual’ appearance may be Tamsin’s employment nemesis. Whilst she was working at the above nursery school, she received a ‘phone call one Friday, almost out of the blue, from the owner of a local private Montessori pre-school, in response to a C.V. that Tamsin had sent weeks before and had forgotten about. The job was that of a part-time music teacher. After her initial excitement over Tamsin’s qualifications, and positive feedback over Tamsin’s ideas for working with children, even asking her to go in for a trial afternoon the following Tuesday, the woman then came round to deliver all the ‘info’ she thought Tamsin would need to make up her mind over whether or not to join them. She found Tamsin working under the bus, sweaty and dirty, and definitely not looking her best! After the weekend, Tamsin ‘phoned up to ask what time she should arrive, and was told she was not suitable (?), and was not given any adequate explanation as to why. Tamsin was so shocked, she didn’t have the presence of mind to quiz her further, but since nothing had changed in the interim, and there certainly had not been time to interview anyone else, we can only surmize ….. Such blatant discrimination!!

Earlier this year saw Tamsin persuading us of the merits of the ‘Big Green Gathering’, that it would be “just your sort of thing” …. hmmm …. “But it’s camping … I hate camping!!”. Visions of Glastonbury crossed with the Mudmen of Asaro (Papua New Guinea) were conjured up by my unconvinced brain. “Erm …..” “Oh Mum, you’ll love it!” A compromise was duely reached, and the second week of August saw us slinking off to the Gathering, but without tent, and effetely turning up at a B&B. That this sort of subversive behaviour should crop up had not occurred to the organizers. The field was surrounded by high fencing and patrolled by guards with evil dogs. Every evening, the guards would lock the gates at 9-30 p.m. Every evening, we pleaded with the guards .. would they unlock the gates … would we find freedom on the other side … could we find our torch … could they find the key … “Er … who’s got the key?” “Thingy’s got the key, and he’ll be another ten minutes ….” ….. twenty minutes of wandering … up and down .. up and down .. up and down .. row upon row upon row of assorted vehicles in the dark … “Oh, joy! At last!” … “cackle! cackle!” … (sob!) … never has our rusting heap looked so good! Driving tentatively up to the gate, the guard stopped us .. (gulp!) … what did he want? “You realize that you can’t get back in ‘till 8 tomorrow morning?” We mumbled a reply …. he seemed satisfied … the gate opened … we were free!

Actually, it was interesting, with lots of talks on green political issues, transition towns, community permaculture schemes, low impact dwellings, workshops on how to approach the planning system, how to build a straw bale building, films about communities here and in other parts of the world, etc., as well as lots of music, kids activities (of which more below!), washing machines powered by bicycle (child-driven – very useful!), solar-powered showers, and superb vegetarian food …mmmm! Of course, the ‘It’s not easy being green’ Strawbridge family were there too … but we mustn’t hold that against them! There were passionate deep greens, right though to others who just turned up for the music, and those who were there …. just … to …. experience .... “Like, wow, man … I’ll just chill out for a while …..”

Mobile ‘phones not usually working at festivals, meant that we kept not commumicating with Tamsin … her ‘phone was either left in Judd’s van (Judd being, at that moment, her boy-friend), or it was dead … then having to ‘phone or text her friend to pass on messages, when and if they happened to see her ….. (sigh!) … by which time we’d moved on! It transpired that the brother and sister who owned and ran the nursery school where Tamsin was working, had a second life as children’s entertainers! And their brother lived in a van! No wonder they were averse to him just turning up and parking it outside the school - it would scare off the punters in Cirencester! Double lives, eh? …. though they were definitely at the straighter end of the clientele that descended on the Big Green Gathering …. (!)

Tamsin disappeared off to Holland, specifically to Den Haag’s Royal Conservatoire, at the end of August to do a course on sonology or ‘obscure sound stuff’, in her ‘new’ bus which she ruthlessly insisted that I, Bob, help convert into a live-in van over the summer (there seems to be a rule that I spend at least one summer in three confined in a cramped space). “Noooo! …. not … the shower!” (quiver! quiver!). The bus is even bigger than her old rusty van and is a sort of giant Reliant Robin made in Co. Durham by a company of deserved obscurity in the late 1980s. Much was learnt in the process – never buy a vehicle wider than your street and of which only 400 have been made (only broke one side mirror, only cost £90 to have a new clutch pipe made) – how bus windows are held in place and why they leak (several tubes of goo later they sort-of stopped) - how bus bodies are held together and why they leak (more goo, many self-tapping screws) – when lifting a 3 tonne bus on tarmac with only soil as support, your jack may go down as well as up (more lumps of wood) and more about vehicle electrics (what is a split-charge regulator anyway?).

She left for the continent with the bus almost finished, much to the relief of the neighbours, pausing only to collect her newly-acquired ‘boyfriend’ Jack (ex Canon Frome …. but more of that later) plus yurt and hefty wooden floor, repair a broken fan-belt on the M25, make a detour to Brighton to collect a load of her friend Dana’s accoutrements (for later removal to Berlin), do a gig and go to a party whilst there, stop off at Ghent for another party, with a small interlude on a campsite in Den Haag, before finally touching down on an organic farm and official squat near Utrecht…. (pause for breath). She now commutes like the rest of us …. plus ça change …..

Having visited the odd community or two in the past year, we finally found one, Canon Frome Court, that (a) we like, and (b) is prepared to accept us (actually, they’ve only refused one family, so that’s not a great recommendation). This involves visiting for two or three weekends to get to know as many people as possible, attending one housing association meeting, then getting sponsored by half a dozen people to be put on The List. Once on The List (the holy grail), you keep on visiting until a flat of the size that you want becomes available. The community then decide who on The List would satisfy certain criteria held to be necessary for a balanced community at that time, such as family size, age, and useful skills. The flat is then valued and offers are invited from those that are chosen. This may sound onerous, but actually there are only about half a dozen families or couples on The List at the moment. This is because you have to keep up the visits, making at least one visit per year, and for various reasons, people sometimes stop going, so they fall off The List (ouch!).

Canon Frome Court is a Grade II listed Georgian building and stable block, with Victorian and early twentieth century additions. It is a 45 acre small organic farm, which the whole 18-flat community is involved in running. It was once a school, so the ornate ballroom became a gym, now a function room, and there is an outdoor pool! The village church is just across the tennis courts, and it is even on a bus route during term times, stopping just outside the main door – how’s that for service? There is a large walled garden, complete with poly-tunnels, and greenhouse, orchards, two milking cows, a flock of sheep (swung it for us!), half a dozen goats, chickens, bees and fields devoted to barley for the animals, wheat, onions, and potatoes. They think they are about 80% self-sufficient in food.

I first went there towards the end of April - Bob having already enjoyed(?) being a slave a few weeks previously in March. It was in the post-euphoric aftermath of chemotherapy, when my step was springy (not yet troubled by a heavy head of hair!) and prior to being zapped, when I still had more energy to dig weeds than Bob! (enough of this competitive weed-digging! – Bob). Since then …..there was this machine ….. people in white coats ……. draining the very life-force from my body …. (gasp!) …. no energy ……. zzzz! Hmm …. not sure if alien abduction would be accepted as an excuse for being late for work …. But I digress …. the sun was mercilessly beating down on our heads …. the logs were heavy … the weeds tough …. water! … water! …. (gasp! gasp!). And that was April. August arrived …. the weeds were still tough, but …. it was raspberry season …. tomatoes … basil …. salad leaves …. pick your own lunch … cream and cheese from their cows … eggs from their chickens …. zilch food miles there! And … it was party time! …. which is where Jack comes in … remember him, dear reader, Tamsin’s sudden inamorato? We arrived after sun-down, and ground to a halt in front of a large notice about ‘foot and mouth’ and washing wheels of vehicles with disinfectant. What to do? … bleach … no water … cannot fetch water without possible contamination … erm … spot people under spot-lights erecting wooden structure (a stage) in front of the house … yell at them …. Jack finally walks over with water … saved! The following evening was Canon Frome’s summer party, but this time organized by ‘the young folk’ and their followers from the village. The first half involved any musicians actually resident at Canon Frome, and the second half appeared to consist of local bands, followed by dancing to DJs. At some point, Tamsin got together with Jack … two weeks later, she and Jack set off for Holland … a whirlwind romance? … erm .. well ... not exactly ….

Also squeezed into the narrow time-frame between the two … cough! … treatments, was a few days’ stay in a Landmark Trust property – unfortunately during the Easter holidays, i.e., very expensive - an expense of cancer treatment I hadn’t thought of before! If we’d left it until after everything was done and dusted, it wouldn’t have made any difference, because of summer prices (sigh!) – you just can’t win! What is now known as the Danescombe mine, on the National Trust Cotehele estate near Calstock in Cornwall, is an old engine house, now made habitable by the Landmark Trust, set amidst other picturesquely-ruined mine buildings, and surrounded by a wood. This was a superb location, by a stream, at the end of a road of National Trust holiday cottages, over a bridge, where it became a bridle track, so no cars passing by ….. silence …. tap! tap! tap! ….. silence ….. tap! tap! tap! ….. silence …. tap! tap! .. was my brain harbouring death watch beetle? … surely nothing could survive in there …. ah, no, it’s a woodpecker, brilliant! … never seen one before! An evening of wine and chocs and reading …. toowit … toowoo ….toowit … toowoo … er … would somebody please turn the owls down a bit? Next day …. miinnngggg! ….. clunk! …. miinnngggg! …. clunk! …. miinnngggg! ….clunk! … waking to a little light tree-pruning haunting dreams of helicopters … Enough of this stream of consciousness stuff! Early records of mining activity being somewhat sketchy, there appeared to have been some confusion over whether this mine actually was the Danescombe mine. Could this have referred to one slightly lower down the valley? Any history of these two mines appears to be muddled, especially since they each closed and then re-opened more than once, due to the vagaries of the copper and arsenic markets .... hmmm ... wouldn’t want a veg plot there, would we, folks?

We tramped up the hill (gasp! gasp!), with a magnificent view over the Tamar, looked around the mediaeval Cotehele house, and then tramped down the hill … and when they were up, they were up, and when they were down, they were down … (sorry, got side-tracked, again!). The fortified house didn’t have electric lighting, and the tapestries had been cut to fit around different doorways as the house was altered over the centuries (“don’t want to waste money on a new one, this’ll do …” hack! hack! snip!), but an abiding memory was of a row of early Victorian fire-extinguishers, looking rather like glass grenades, each containing carbonic acid, which one was supposed to throw into the fire in order to produce carbon dioxide ..... I’m guessing no-one ever had to put this into practice!

The gardens were pretty, but we wanted to get away from other tourists, so we went on long walks round the estate, ending up at the Prospect Tower, which was supposedly built to celebrate the visit to the area of King George III and Queen Charlotte, with the purpose of signalling to the Edgcumbe family’s main house, Mount Edgcumbe, on Plymouth Sound .... “Quick!, they’re coming! Tell ‘em to put the kettle on!” ..... “Oh damn, it’s become cloudy .... no signal ...” Later ... “Er .. sorry, tea’s orff, Your Majesties!”. After our descent and emergence into the sunlight, we were suddenly aware of a threatening presence (gulp!) .... slowly does it ... no fast moves .... the eyes stare at us ... one of them makes a move for the rucksack .... “Walk faster! She’s after the sandwiches!” .... (sigh!) ... even cows seem to be addicted to fast food .... Next day ... walked back up the hill (cough! wheeze!) to buy local artwork, specifically, light-fittings made from beautiful handmade blue / purple glass .. couldn’t resist ... walked down the hill .... “me knees are killing me!” “huh! flatlanders!” ... and round the bend ... (?) ... to view local ceramic art .. bought blue bowl ... such extravagance ... fall on sword ... Supported local economy ... which is nice ...

I, Bob, did so little in the first half of the year that I can’t remember any of it. Think I must have done some computing…. ah, yes, that’s why I’ve forgotten…. Then there was the previously-mentioned bus, of which nuff said. And on 17th September, I was pitched head-first back into deep academe to start “The PhD” (fanfare!). It has been a strange few months so far, an odd mixture of, of…. an odd mixture, anyway. Like turning up for a new job and being asked “so what do you want to do?” Because they are grooming us for our bright new future as academic, social science, researchers, we get jolly lectures on philosophy of research containing this “ism” and that “ism”, an awful lot of which sails gently past me, and stern lectures on ethics and the need to be organized and disciplined, against which I have a thick layer of crumpled habits and wooliness as protection. We are an odd, cosmopolitan group, us novice researchers from the Built Environment dept. There are two Mexicans, a Czech, a Brazilian, a Thai, three Brits (none of us spring chickens, either), a Nigerian or two, maybe someone from China, so the language problems are fun but no worse than you would expect! Soon I will be expected to go out into Conference World and give presentations and papers on my minute, but in-depth, corner of knowledge…(shiver!). But what is your thesis about, you ask? No, don’t! or else I might start to tell you and we’d be here for three years…… (Actually, it’s about ground source heat pumps – Joy ….. There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?)

Things were looking up earlier this year, when Rupe announced that since we were thinking of moving at some point, then he, too, had made a decision to move out at the end of June. Shocked - we almost fell out of our seats! It seems that someone that Rupe knew was doing up some flats and re-letting them, and had thought to let the biggest one to Rupe and three friends. Since this would have involved a slight illegality (not wanting the expense of fire-doors or a fire escape), of letting it to a couple who would then sub-let to Rupe and a friend, it didn’t in the end happen. The bloke had a fit of conscience .... and we still have the entire top floor and much else besides, cluttered up with the accoutrements of a musician ... or two ... (crush! squeeze!) ... not to mention Tamsin’s kitchen equipment, which grew exponentially every time she infested a different squat / house, and which now does not fit in her bus ...... (sigh!).

Rupert had more than his allotted fifteen minutes of fame this year, when, at Easter, the lighting and media technician at the college, decided to organize a production of Ben Elton’s musical ‘We will rock you’. It was open to anyone to audition, not just college students, and so there was a lot of talent about. Somehow or other, Rupert was persuaded to play the ageing hippy, for which he was eminently suited, as well as putting on his other hat of sound technician, pre-recording the backing tracks for the music to make the sound richer, since it is difficult for people to sing and dance at the same time, and there is rather a lot of that in a musical. He also recorded the performances for the DVDs …. the words ‘pea’ and ‘drum’ spring to mind at this point. Originally, there were only going to be performances from Wednesday to Saturday, including the matinée, but the tickets sold out so quickly, that this was extended to include Tuesday, and then finally Monday, which is when we managed to go. Being first night, it is almost expected that something is likely to go wrong, but such was the level of professionalism on the stage, that we never really noticed (however, this was just after my chemotherapy …….. “huh! excuses!”). The ageing hippy was supposed to play a video tape of forbidden music to the hero and heroine, but the machine refused to play (apparently, this was because someone had forgotten to rewind the tape after the dress rehearsal …. (sigh!) …). Unfazed, Rupert and the leading lady ad-libbed their way through the ‘crisis’, and Rupert sang in lieu of what was supposed to be a video of Queen! The audience had a really great time, singing along with all those Queen songs that have been lodged in our memories since …. er ……. since …… er ….. hmmm. Interestingly, during rehearsals, the director was always telling Rupert off for ad-libbing …….. As an after-show ‘thank you’ gift, he was given a chocolate champagne bottle inscribed with “The swearing hippy”! …. It’s still sitting there as a reminder….. he was on a high for weeks ….

Apart from this, Rupe is still gigging, doing lots of musical things, occasionally teaching drums, is still working at the college, is still with Lizzie, his girl-friend, has failed his driving test three times, is trying again next week (Dec. 11th), and is rapidly running out of money ....... so, nothing new, then .... Since Rupert’s been with Lizzie, he’s been smoking much less, and ‘culture’ (apart from music) is impinging on his brain ... (?) .... they’re just off to see ‘Noughts and Crosses’ at Stratford, a modern take on the ‘Romeo and Juliet’ theme ... things may be looking up .....

By now, I feel that I’ve probably bored you enough, and so it’s time to wish everyone a Merry (?) Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Lots of love to you all,

Joy, Bob, Rupert and Tamsin.

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