In which I muse upon an anachronism

I feel as though I ought to apologise in advance, because I know full well I shall indulge myself in some unrestrained digression in this chapter. You will have to wait until halfway through to actually find out what the anachronism was.

The other day I was out and about in the town (I beg its pardon, the city of Brighton & Hove-actually) doing some of my usual errands. This generally consists of buying bananas for the Inexhaustible Baby, who has one for breakfast every morning. Note that I say advisedly 'has one' and not 'eats one'. Some mornings he devours his banana in the most gluttonous fashion as though he were indeed a starving million. On other days, most of it will 'adorn' the floor. And at this point I sigh for my previous life as a lady gainfully employed, who earned enough and was busy enough to justify to herself (and to Mr B) the employment of someone who obliged with the cleaning and ironing. Then I clean the rapidly decaying banana from the floor while the Inexhaustible plays watering cans on the table with his cup and the Infant Phenomenon takes half an hour to eat one extremely small apple.

I am no longer gainfully employed. Again, note that I say 'gainfully employed' not 'employed'. I am on the whole fully employed in trying to manage the household, persuade the Infant Phenomenon to eat and the Inexhaustible to sleep, as well as actually find a new avocation for myself. I look forward to the time when I will again receive those charming monthly billets-doux and corresponding augmentations of vulgar material wealth. In the meantime, in our attempts to master domestic economy and avoid expensive luxuries, I have changed the way in which I go about my shopping for groceries. Instead of simply doing one large Waitrose order online (as a lady in the 19th century would simply have ordered the cook to procure the necessary items for these dishes) and putting it away when the helpful delivery person has carried it into the kitchen for me, I now end up buying most of the crucial fresh foods in the usual way, but shopping for dry and tinned goods in less expensive emporia. The end result of this is that I seem to be perpetually shopping and - woe is me! - perpetually running out of something. So much for the Domestic Goddess. Perhaps I could aspire to be an Angel in the Home instead, that sounds much grander and one would expect such a lady to enjoy the ministrations of an excellent housekeeper...

Hence my frequent trips to the shops and we return at last to the day on which I spotted the anachronism. It was simply this: an elderly gentleman on a bicycle. I saw him twice and was incomprehensibly struck by his appearance. In an attempt to understand why I found him so noticeable, I have expended much thought (cooking, cleaning, ironing and shopping generally allow much time for such musings) on finding out why.

The first and most obvious reason is that he reminded me of one of my dear grandparents: my grandpapa in Ireland (the photo of Grandpapa below most kindly supplied by my dear aunt, Mrs F). He wasn't as handsome a gentleman as was my grandpapa, but he was dressed identically in the same kind of respectable overcoat and good flat cap. For some time, I put the strong impression down to this and indulged in fond memories of some of his inimitable sayings. ('He knows as much about that as a pig knows about a clean shirt' being one of my personal favourites.)

Then I started to reflect on what looked wrong about the picture because something was bothering me. I realised that in the not-entirely-appropriate wire shopping basket on the front of the bike (it should have been wicker), instead of the usual shopping bag there was a rucksack. I simply could not envisage this gentleman off his bike, in that garb and with a sports-type rucksack on his back. That was problem number one. Problem number two was that you generally don't see elderly people on bicycles any more. It used to be a common form of transport for people of all ages, but is so no longer. The omnibus and horseless carriage yes, but not the bicycle. Especially not in Brighton, which is excessively hilly and in consequence where you don't often catch me on my bicycle either (in spite of my former 'Urban Warrior Queen of Hyde Park Corner' status).

In fact, near my home you see many cyclists of the extremely dedicated and sporting kind: clad in all the correct accoutrements, which include helmets. Not flat caps. And so the list goes on. You often see people on bicycles without helmets (more fool them, frankly) but not in flat caps. They sport lycra shorts or tights and wraparound sunglasses, they glow in the dark like a Japanese nuclear reactor, they have particular shoes which clip to their pedals, specific kind of shirts with cunning pockets in odd places - and no shopping baskets on the front.

Some, myself included, will occasionally use the machine about daily tasks in the conviction that we are achieving our aims and getting the needful exercise as well. The bicycle, in the midst of our beautiful South Downs, is perhaps more of an extreme sport than a form of transport.

In which I am grateful for modern medicine

The Inexhaustible Baby has spent much of the winter in a state of copious mucus. I do apologise for my lack of delicacy but really, when one spends appreciable portions of every morning trying to clear his little countenance of the truly revolting bits left from the night and his nose of hideous blockages, one rather loses one's daintiness on the subject. It really has been very difficult for him, the poor mite has just gone from one horrid cold to another and he always struggles to get rid of them. One can hear his breathing and he develops a chesty cough each time.

What I find somewhat puzzling is that in spite of his being such a sturdy little ruffian, who eats as though there is an interval of days between each meal, he succumbs to every cold that comes along. This is in sharp distinction to his sister, who eats but poorly and looks so dainty and fragile that she might float away in a light breeze. She has the constitution of an ox and never seems to suffer from more than a mild cold. Certainly she has avoided the procession of phlegm that has afflicted her brother.

The Inexhaustible now seems to be recovering from his most recent bout and I am in hopes that the milder weather may give him some respite. I must confess though, that on this occasion, I was actually relieved that he had a cold - because the alternative was infinitely worse.

Some two weeks ago, my heart sank when on arrival at nursery, a new notice was to be seen on the front door advising parents that one of the children had contracted scarlet fever. The next day, the notice had been changed from one to three and the Inexhaustible seemed to be sickening with something. I was, I will admit, pessimistic. It seemed to me that with his tendency to absorb every form of bacteria within his orbit, his chances of escaping this were slim. On the day when he developed a temperature and sore throat, as well as displaying a most uncharacteristic lethargy, my misgivings were grave.

In retrospect, my reactions were probably somewhat extreme, because I remembered how many characters in novels that I have read have died of scarlet fever and similar illnesses. I couldn't help think with nervousness of Beth in Miss Alcott's Little Women who never really recovers her health and strength. Interestingly the grandmamma of one of the Infant Phenomenon's companions at ballet said that her own mamma was horrified at the mention of scarlet fever and earnestly advocated the incineration of all bedclothes, clothing and soft toys once the infection has reared its ugly head in any well-ordered nursery.

However, thanks indeed to modern medicine, this one-time killer has become a very treatable and relatively unimportant illness for the few who catch it. With that panacea for every childish fever, Calpol, to lower the temperature and antibiotics to kill the infection, the scarlet fever of our nightmares, does truly belong in the 19th century. And I, for one, am most content that it should so remain.

In which I suffer a culinary mishap

I have great pleasure in cooking. One could call it an inherited passion as my Mamma is a superb cook. She is entirely self-taught as in her childhood home, the 'Missy Sahibs' were not permitted to enter the kitchen. Rather like the Misses Bennet in Pride & Prejudice, the young ladies 'had nothing to do in the kitchen'. On the other side, Papa's family - most notably in the persons of my dearest cousin and my aunt, Miss and Mrs F - are also well versed in all the culinary arts. Indeed Papa himself, while not terribly at home amidst the onions and garlic, excels in his appreciation of Mamma's many works of art and may be considered a devoted worshipper at the shrine of which Mamma is the high priestess. In my own abode, I gladly share mastery of the kitchen with Mr B, himself no mean exponent of the hospitable art of cooking. Anyone who has eaten his cakes or his roast dinners will, I am sure, agree with me.

Mr B and I are both keen eaters as well as cooks (hence my earlier wails about my embonpoint) and enjoy experimenting with new recipes. Our greatest challenge in this wise is finding sufficient time. As a general rule, we eschew excessively faddy 'gadgets' about the kitchen and embrace only those which will stand a severely utilitarian test of  appreciably saving us time or labour. Thus the Magimix is a beloved replacement for a kitchenmaid, the dishwasher for the scullerymaid and thanks to the refrigerator, it is no longer necessary for the butcher to call daily at the area steps with the day's meat order. However, my electrical sauce maker, the juicer and the bread maker see the light of day no more.

The purchase of any new piece of culinary equipment is thus rather an enjoyable and absorbing pastime in our household and when the fiat goes forth in favour of buying something, there is usually a great deal of pleasant discussion and light-hearted debate. This was exactly the case with the slow cooker. One of Mr B's cousins, dear Miss I, was visiting and was eloquent in her praise of this particular piece of equipment. In view of the extreme utility of being able to prepare a meal first thing in the morning which will be ready to eat at the end of the day without further supervision, we agreed up on the purchase.

The device soon arrived by the medium of the post and eager was the desire of myself, Mr B and the Infant Phenomenon to sample the delights of this method of cooking. My first attempt I would call a qualified success. Using the receipt which came with book of instruction, I made what they called Hungarian Goulash. It was tasty and both the Infant Phenomenon and the Inexhaustible Baby ate to repletion, as did their parents. My only qualms were that my Hungarian sister-in-law Miss K might not recognise the dish as anything remotely resembling Hungarian Goulash. Nonetheless, leaving aside all such fussing over authenticity, it could be called a success.

My next attempt involved using a receipt from a new publication, especially written and bought for this device, by Mr Worrall Thompson. The book had been well- although not numerously reviewed and at first glance appeared to be the very thing I needed. Figure to yourself my distress and disappointment then, when I found that the end result of this receipt was foul-smelling and completely inedible. Mr B and I both had the fortitude to taste a sip of the sauce, but to no avail. Nothing would have induced us to sit down and actually eat the dish. Fortunately for myself, I had not used any ludicrously expensive ingredients, but the best part of a bottle of wine was wasted. It ended up as a very costly meal indeed, as we were obliged to send out for our dinner to the Indian eating house at the end of the road, which is pleasant but hardly economical.

I attempted to overcome this reversal by making another recipe from the book of instruction. This turned out tolerably well, but I am now plagued with the following question: Do I give Mr Worrall Thompson a second chance or should I simply forget all about him?

In which I am dashing away with a smoothing iron

I must confess that ironing is not one of my preferred tasks around the home. In fact, I don't think any particular task around the home could ever be described as a preference for me. Had I followed my preferences, I should have been curled up in the armchair with my nose in my latest Trollope trouvaille (Ralph the Heir, should anyone be remotely interested). But duty is duty and a woman's work is never done (nor is a man's, as Mr B is still beavering away at something for his interminable office while I have finished the ironing and am simply enjoying this mild cyber gossip).

There I was, then, dashing away with my smoothing iron and to beguile the tedium, I was listening to Mr Bach's Motets. And with ironing, one's mind does wander - that is both its advantage and disadvantage, an idle mind and busy hands. And I got to thinking about that wonderful composer Mr Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) and the rather staggering piece of biographical information that he had 20 (yes, twenty) children by his two wives. Of course any reputable source will inform you that only ten of these survived to adulthood, but still TWENTY CHILDREN! I struggle to keep pace with but two!

I will mention immediately that my knowledge of the domestic style of living of such a man is small, as I have not read any of the biographies, nor am I overly familiar with the period; but I am aware that at this point in time, such a man, genius as he was, was simply regarded as an upper level servant of whichever court or church happened to be his employer. I do not believe he would have been particularly wealthy, though I expect he earned respectably. And my mind wandered into wondering how many woman hours went into the laundering of nappies for 20 children and who on earth actually did it? Someone in the Bach household must have spent years of her life simply laundering nappies.

It puts my current worries as to my temporary career lull somewhat into perspective...

In which I discover a small domestic mishap

It cannot be said that the possession of a fully functioning pair of bathroom scales is an unmitigated blessing. On the contrary, there are times when the item in question is more of a bane than a boon. You step on and they heap reproaches on you for the gluttonous indulgence of some holiday season. Or you refuse to step on and they mutely upbraid you for your arrant cowardice. 'Madam,' you hear them say 'you may avoid us for a season but be sure that the moment of truth will come and you will have gained nothing (except more pounds) from your procrastination.'


However ambivalent my attitude towards this voice of truth masquerading as a domestic article, the discovery I made earlier today that the Infant Phenomenon has completely wrecked our bathroom scales (a rather smart digital pair, courtesy of Mr John Lewis) by means of jumping on it with greater vigour than decorum, simply for the fun of the thing, has slightly saddened me.


Notwithstanding the many reproaches they have cast on me, I remember that I have gone through the frankly comical weight gain of two 'interesting conditions' with them and two periods of hard-fought weight loss, in which every fraction of a kilo gone has been a cause for celebration, and when I have almost heard the usually reproachful voice saying 'Well done'.


I feel that I have lost a stern, but on the whole benevolent, mentor. Having said which, perhaps I shall replace them with a less smart and consequently less expensive pair, which it will be harder for either the Infant Phenomenon or the Inexhaustible Baby to demolish. Not that I would put it beyond either of them...

In which I aspire to be more of a Trollope

I expect I ought to have called this chapter 'In which I succumb to the temptation of a rather obvious and vulgar pun' but I am sure you will eventually forgive me.

I have been immersing myself of late in the works of Mr Trollope, particularly the lesser known (undeservedly in my opinion). I have always been a fervent admirer of his writings and it is many years since I was attracted to the cathedral city of Barchester and entered warmly into the feelings of Mrs Bold and Mr Harding, thoroughly enjoying my comic loathing of Mr Slope and Mrs Proudie. I suspect it was seeing the BBC adaptation of this great work that introduced me to Mr Trollope, as my parents hadn't read any of most enjoyable novels. Who could forget the superb performances of Mr Alan Rickman and Miss Geraldine McEwan?

Nonetheless on my latest ramble through the works of this most prolific author I have avoided some of his most well-known fictions. I have included two which were entirely new to me: Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite and Mr Scarborough's Family. I have also reread several others, including The Vicar of Bullhampton, Dr Wortle's School, Cousin Henry, Is He Popenjoy? and The Three Clerks. I have now however given in to the siren call of Barsetshire and am immersed in Dr Thorne. I expect once I have got through the chronicles I shall revisit Orley Farm, renew my acquaintance with Rachel Ray and sympathise once more with Emily Trevelyan in He Knew He Was Right.

One of the greatest pleasures for me in this is how complete a picture it gives one of mid-Victorian society. It is interesting to see how much has since changed, in regards to the rights of women, for example. Trollope is unhesitatingly hostile to increasing the rights of women (he gives a most unsympathetic portrayal of the movement in Is He Popenjoy?). Yet he is very sympathetic to the way many of his young female characters seek to find purpose and meaning in their lives. His answer of course is to find it in husband and family, but he is often very tender to the old maids of his stories. His own views notwithstanding, he does fully see how circumscribed is the life that he describes women living. Perhaps the long list of occupations he gives somewhat scathingly as those which women wished to pursue, and which we now do without one single exception, should be regarded as one of the great successes of the women's movement. From voting to buying and selling on the Stock Exchange.

Some things are more or less unchanged though - politics for example, an abiding passion of Mr Trollope's. The Prime Minister would make very salutary reading for the members of our current coalition government, not on their policies of which I personally despair. It might show them the impossibility of a coalition surviving and the practical difficulties of yoking two disparate parties together successfully. While the unsavoury financial activities of characters such as Ferdinand Lopez and Augustus Melmotte remind us that fraudulent speculation of the kind that we associate with names such as Enron, Arthur Andersen and Worldcom are in fact very old stories indeed.

We are in the habit in our modern world of thinking of the Victorians as a byword for stuffy prudishness. It is certain that their moral and social standards could be extremely severe - witness the distress of poor Mary Thorne and the difficulty of her position in the world when she discovers she is illegitimate. What I so much admire in Mr Trollope is that without even the faintest approach to sensationalism (which I do also enjoy, I might add) he tackles topics which would at the time have been considered extremely sensitive: illegitimacy, living together outside marriage, social mobility, the utter misery of genteel poverty and perhaps to me most surprising, unflinching studies of mental illness. The gradual growth of Louis Trevelyan's madness in He Knew He Was Right cannot but fill the reader with pity for him and those whose lives he blights. However the portrait of Mr Crawley's struggles with depression and his wife's attempts to help and shield him in The Last Chronicle of Barsetshire will always amaze me by its depth of perception and balanced sympathy.

I find that Mr Trollope wrote 43 novels. I also find that I have read a mere 28 so far. I will not set myself any time limits, but I do aim to have read them all at some stage. Thus will I become more of a Trollope.

In which the herald angels sing, but I - alas - am not one of them

Those of you who know me will be aware of my enthusiasm, bordering on fanaticism, for all things choral prior to the arrival of Mr B in my life and for some little time after his advent. He is an excellent musician himself and as sympathetic to my vocal activities as anyone could well be. Nonetheless I must confess I was sensible of a degree of constraint, perhaps bordering on annoyance, when my choral commitments forced him to book a date some weeks ahead in which to propose marriage with all the due decorum and romance which a gentleman of his temperament would naturally prefer.

Ah, the halcyon years of singing with the Philharmonia Chorus! And then the chamber choir for which I had the honour and joy of expending some small administrative effort. Both were occasionally productive of little difficulties, but looking at the overall account, enriched my life to a glorious degree. Some ten years of my life, while resident in the metropolis, were dominated by singing and its corollary activities - such as touring northern Italy to sing Verdi's Aida; singing Haydn's Creation at the Vatican; trying to sing a whole song (Dashing Away With a Smoothing Iron) a third too high at Shiplake, including two modulations up and a male section 'corpsing' openly in performance. I have been fortunate indeed to have been deemed worthy to form one of such groups.

With such an explanation, I now propose to slightly paraphrase some words from the opening of a work by one of our most renowned American cousins, Miss Alcott. "Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," Miss Alcott's rebellious Jo declares. For me it would be "Christmas won't be Christmas without any singing." While I can give up 'Classic Carols at the Albert Hall' albeit with a small pang, there is one omission at Christmas which I actually could not endure. If I do not get at least one opportunity to sing 'Hark, the herald angels sing', I feel as though Christmas simply hasn't happened. By the bye, the genesis of this seasonal musical gem is explored by the splendid Mr Russell Beale in his programme.

Thus, in spite of the difficulty of attending rehearsals and my own parlous lack of singing practice (which now dates back to the birth of the Infant Phenomenon, sigh) I did participate in a carol service in the week before Christmas. Words cannot express my dismay at my complete inability to sing in tune. I have since tried to persuade myself that this inability originated largely in a perfectly appalling head cold, which has dogged me for some weeks now and in fact is only just passing. I could scarce hear myself. But that is no excuse. There is NO excuse for singing flat.

As Miss Alcott's Meg says "It's so dreadful going flat." Well, perhaps she might have said being poor, but it's the same kind of thing.

And I add, as does Mr B, a most happy new year to all our friends, family and well-wishers.