Old fashioned GPS

We don't have GPS in our car - my husband says I'm the GPS. Could stand for 'Girl Points Somewhere' - actually when I point I invariably point to the some 'where' where we are supposed to be going - I am quite good at directions. Could call it 'VPS' - 'Virginia Plots a Sightsee' - I enjoy planning a day out and getting my Ordnance Survey maps out. I rather love maps so imagine my excitement when I came across the Auto-mapic in a charity shop last year, the GPS of fifties Europe.

It's a GB road map in a plastic casing with tabs on the side. You adjust the tabs and a new section of road map appears before your eyes. As the blurb on the casing says "Safer and quicker to use than a folding map, the Auto-mapic is a permanent solution to the road map problem."

I think it dates from the 1950s and 1960s - quite early on as mine doesn't have the M1 marked on it. In fact a previous owner has felt-tipped the M1 and M6 in. It is very very splendid with lovely detailed maps with all the little towns included. There's even a rather wonderful London map showing clearly all the arterial roads and places I've heard about but never visited like Greenwich and Chiswick and Chelsea.  At a flick of the tabs you are in another part of country. GPS - pah - we now live by the Auto-mapic at 88.

My Dad's voice

My 'OK' post set me thinking about voices, about intonation, cadence and timbre. My Dad died four years ago and of all the things I miss about not having him here, it's his voice. I can hear him as I write. His voice had a wonderful timbre. It had a very distinctive quality that had nothing to do with his Yorkshire accent although the shortened vowels of the North probably enriched it. It was very very pleasant, strong and warm and easy on the ear. There was a slight hesitancy in the voice, a thoughtfulness. There was a landscape to his voice, ups and downs, valleys and hills.

It's funny how senses other than sight can evoke a person so vividly. I can also smell my Dad - specifically I can smell a particular jumper of his circa the 1970s that was a dark mustard colour, probably more French than English. I suppose I got lots of cuddles in the 70s and got to breathe in that jumper. Dad was a farmer so wasn't in his best clothes that often and I remember this V shaped thick knitted jumper that he had for best-casual.

In fact, when we cleared his wardrobe - the one that contained all his best suits and jackets and trousers and jumpers - that was the smell. The wardrobe smelled of him or did he smell of the wardrobe? I think the drawers and interior wood were made from cedar and that is the aromatic perfume that will forever evoke my dad. I wish I could have removed that fitted wardrobe with its beautiful red wooden drawers and reconstructed it in my own house at 88 but alas I couldn't. In fact, my husband bought some leather shoes last year and was supplied with some shoe trees, made from cedar wood. When he unpacked them, exposing their aroma, my dad was there in the room with me. Funny old things smells and voices.

 

A very keen to be green Easter bunny

Happy Easter Holidays! My children entered their school's annual Easter egg competition. The theme this year was 'Keen to be Green'. They decorated our two rubber band balls, transforming them into a bunny egg and decorating with found hair bobbles, slides and pennies.

 

They wrote an explanation explaining how we had all collected the rubber bands and other things over the last two years. They even stuck this message to a ruler they found on the pavement. And we oops they didn't even win a teeny tiny chocolate egg...not even a shaving or sliver of chocolate. How much keener to be green can you get? We keep our local streets around 88 free of rubber bands. It's a travesty we  they didn't win. An injustice!  I myself They really fancied the prize of a nice chocolate egg to tuck into at Easter. Some parents are so pushy!

 

 

 

OK - good, bad or indifferent?

The trouble with texts is that you can't hear them. You can't hear intonation, you can't hear the cadence in which your text is spoken. You can't glean from the sound of the text, the spirit in which the reply is returned.

Ponderings at 88 over a simple OK

I have sent two texts in the last few days to which the reply was 'OK'. Now is that an OK that's great, that's cool, that's absolutely at one with the world or is it an OK that is grumpy? Is it one which says that's OK but I'm not very happy with the situation; don't bother me again?

Most times I just move on but sometimes I spend ages pondering what type of 'OK' it is. I know the nature of texts is to be brief and to the point but sometimes I would like context, a happy cadence written into the reply. OK?

In 'vest' ments

I may be breaking new ground here for new subjects to blog about. I wonder if anyone has ever blogged about vests! We love them at 88 or should I say my two children do. It's unseasonably cold here with a bitter east wind - probably quite balmy compared with other northern climes but quite chilly for us Brits. My two are fine - they have their vests on.

They always wear short sleeved vests - it's a hangover from when I was a child and always had to wear a vest. When I became a mum it was just in my psyche that vests had to be bought and placed cocoon-like on my child in loving cosiness. A very good friend always teases me about the vests - even in really warm weather the vests are de rigueur. In fact the met office should consult with us at 88 as to whether it's officially a heatwave or not depending on whether the vests have been discarded or not.

My son won't wear a hat nor gloves nor a coat if he can get away with it but he won't go without his vest. In fact for Christmas they got long sleeved thermal vests - you can tell Christmas is exciting at 88! I have to prise the thermal vests off them to wash both vest and child because they keep them so warm and cosy. They truely are their investments except these are inner coverings.

I dread the day when they say 'No' to their vests. It will come I know. But until that day - hooray for the vest.

What a Palaver

We love the word 'palaver' at 88. It's such a good way of describing life sometimes, particularly if you have two children who go here, there and everywhere. We use the definition of it by way of things being a bit of a fuss or bother but not an unpleasant inconvenience or bustle.

Thursday evenings can be a bit of a palaver - there is swimming, then there is eating, then there is Rainbows and Beavers (I call it Beavow's night) which both start at the same time but not in the same location. Fortunately they finish half an hour apart but then that means walking out twice - not pleasant last night I can tell you in the arctic wind. Then at 7.45pm we can all breathe and say with a grin on our faces what a palaver that all was. There is a certain charm in my 7 year old coming out in a Mancunian kind of accent "Well that was a right palaver."

Apparently 'palaver' also means to talk at length and unnecessarily from the habit in mid 18th century Africa of talks between tribespeople and traders from the Portuguese word for word 'palavra'. And I dare say we do do a lot of palavering over the dinner table too at 88.

Actually I may put a motion forward to rechristen a lot of blogs including mine 'palavers'.....going on and on at length about nothing really.

Tardis Technology

My local council has achieved the impossible. It will defy the laws of physics. Well not quite impossible as Dr Who has been doing it for a long time. It will fit something really quite big and wonderful into something really quite small and not fit for purpose.

My local council intends to close my local library, purpose-built in 1899, and transfer all the books and services down the road to the Town Hall. Strike that...not transfer but squeeze into the Town Hall. Strike that... not squeeze into but lose a few books on the way down there and then breathe in and push. Of course I may be wrong and the Town Hall is a TARDIS, bigger on the inside than the outside and all the books and all the staff and all the services that exist at the moment will be fitted in effortlessly.

My local library down the road from 88

It's the slippery slope. Actually it's gone beyond that now we are at the bottom of the slippery slope in a heap, bruised and can't quite get back up. Four libraries have closed in my local authority in the last year. Opening hours have been reduced. Staff have gone and not been replaced. Library budgets slashed. I'll take a wild guess and suggest staff morale has been buried in a deep deep hole and can't be found. Once libraries are shut or squeezed into a local authority TARDIS, they will not come back.

I happen to think libraries are a good thing. Lending books and being an information repository into which you can tap is a good idea, isn't it? My book at bedtime is a library book and my children's books at bedtime and for homework are library books. Supporting them in their education - surprise surprise - is quite important to me. If I can't find something out, I ring the Reference Library. If I want to find out about my local area or my ancestors I go to the Local Studies Library.  Not to mention the people who go into libraries for company and warmth but I suppose that's a risible reason for keeping libraries and the services they provide open.

I know my argument is an emotional one. Savings we are told have to be made but I fear that the quality of my life and that of my neighbours will be diminished. Let's hope it's not extinguished. Will keep you updated.