Somewhere else

When I was a small girl I used to spend Saturdays wandering around London with my father. One of our regular haunts was the Arts Council shop which I seem to remember was in Saville Row. The counter near the front of the shop had a display of postcards in front of it which was at my eyelevel and I remember being entranced by a picture that seemed as real as a photograph. I realised that it couldn’t be a photograph as the people in it were wearing strange old fashioned clothes but even at that age (about five) I knew that my drawings would never be that good. The postcard that I went home with showed William Holman Hunt‘s “The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple” and I still have it, along with many more showing the work of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

I suspect it was the fact that there were grown up ladies dressed as princesses in their paintings without anyone finding it silly that made them interesting as well but even at that age it was impossible to ignore the skill of these artists. The sunlight of Victorian England was trapped in their canvases and the extraordinary jewel like detail of every flower and strand of hair was a shock to my senses. For a child I had spent an unusually large amount of time in front of well known canvases and although I liked some of them I can’t remember feeling the same way about what I had seen before then.

Whatever the reason for my interest the Pre-Raphaelites still have a hold on me and when I saw that Birmingham Art Gallery and Museum were displaying the Burne Jones “Perseus” series (which belongs to Stuttgart’s art gallery) I suggested (without any hope of his agreeing) that Birmingham might be an interesting place to visit. Bearing in mind that he was facing four hours of driving I was a bit surprised when he said “yes”. The car doesn’t get used for much more than the commute to work a few miles away and shopping so this was a real expedition. We checked out parking in Birmingham’s city centre and he set up the sat nav.

I had intended to get up early but managed to oversleep so we set off later than planned. We live in an area where the suburbs start to break up into industrial sites and scrub so it wasn’t long before we were into open farmland. I don’t think the landscape could be described as particularly dramatic but on the way there and back I couldn’t help thinking how lucky I am to live here. Rolling hills, hedgerows and huge old trees. Cows, sheep and the occasional bird of prey, chilling out on a fence post and watching the traffic.

A visit to Birmingham was an opportunity to see my favourite source of quilt making supplies “in the flesh”. The Cotton Patch even provides a few parking spaces. Crammed very neatly into this small shop are fabrics from all over the world, magazines and books, and everything you could possibly need to make the perfect quilt. I have always wanted to buy one of the many Japanese magazines they have available so, head still buzzing from the motorway, I tried to look through them but then just caved in and bought the first one I had seen. I could have bankrupted myself in minutes there so I stuck to the plan and one magazine was my limit.

The sat nav decided to take us through Moseley via Shirley Green which has a lovely red brick Baptist church. We decided that Hall Green was a lot like Edgware and Moseley was definitely like Southall, even down to the traffic. The architecture is largely Victorian red brick and it occurred to me, as it has in the past, that this sort of thing survives when no one can afford to pull it down and rebuild. Lovely small intimate buildings from the late 19th and early 20th century with the occasional 1930’s bit of Art Deco, battered but still in use.

At last we managed to get into the city centre and after a couple of wrong turns we found the chosen car park. It was a short walk to the gallery past some really beautiful and recently cleaned buildings. That part of the city is pedestrianised and we walked through a mall into a large piazza like area with curved steps where people were sitting in the sunshine. Within minutes we were in front of the strange dramatic grey green canvases and drawings produced by Burne Jones in the 1880’s and 1890’s, displayed against rich teal walls. We are so familiar with Pre-Raphaelite art from reproductions in books but there is nothing quite like the real thing. For one thing the images in glossy coffee table books are sometimes larger than the actual painting. Like the teeny weeny “Death of Chatterton” by Henry Wallis. We mused about “Beata Beatrix” and “Proserpine”, made knowing “we used to be art students” type comments about their techniques and then wandered off to see some of the rest of this surprising gallery. There followed the obligatory visit to the shop to buy some postcards and then it was back into the sunshine for something to drink and, alas, back into the car for the long drive.

Home, backs aching and heads spinning, it was hard to get used to the fact that we had been a long way off and back again in the same day. We ought to do it more often, other people would, but I wonder how many would travel that far because of a few old paintings. Still mad for the Pre-Raphaelites after all these years. And still buying postcards.
http://www.bmag.org.uk/

http://www.cottonpatch.co.uk/

http://www.preraphaelites.org

　
　

An allotment show in suburbia

On Saturday I went along to the local allotments and gardens association autumn show and dropped off the albums of photographs that I had taken of earlier events. I felt that these should be archived as the membership of the association gets smaller and gardens in the area disappear under concrete. There were many of the same old faces, the same reliable people who have kept things going through good times and bad. A stall selling local honey, another selling bulbs and plants, and work by a local artist.


There is something about the very ordinary surroundings of the church hall that makes the flowers and vegetables on display look even more extraordinary. Spiky orbs of orange and red chrysanthemums against the long maroon curtains, pale wavy discs of squash against the green baize of the exhibition tables. I expect someone does tidy up before it all gets going but no one seems to mind the stacks of plastic chairs and the odd mix of screens. The produce is what counts.

Admission is free to these shows that take place in the spring, summer and autumn but it is taken as read that you buy a raffle ticket when you go in. Prizes include the usual bottles but we won a walnut tree last time. It will be a decade before we get any walnuts out of it but we were delighted.


Some might feel that our association is in something of a time warp but I find the sameness and regularity of these events reassuring. It is low tech and quiet, relying on face to face, human contact and legwork. There is no website or email address. I suspect that these modern facilities would increase the membership but it would trade a special, indefinable quality for convenience. When I walk into that church hall I know that it probably looked very much the same in 1956, and in 1978. All that has changed is the fashion and hair that has either fallen out or turned grey.

When the association was founded almost eighty years ago the area that I live in was a shiny new suburb, built alongside main roads, a few Victorian buildings and a railway line. Property speculators encouraged the founding of garden associations and front garden competitions because the bare patches in front of the new houses did nothing to enhance the look of the place. By encouraging householders to turn the muddy plots of land around their homes into gardens they knew that they would add value to their development without having to spend any more on it themselves.



Within twenty years of its being founded the gaps had been filled in by Tudorbethan and Art Deco semis and the gardens were being pressed into service to help those on the Home Front. They became a vital resource and garden associations came into their own. Once the Anderson shelter had been built the space around it was used to fill the gaps that rationing had left. Suburbanites who would never have been interested in growing potatoes suddenly wanted the advice of those who had been growing them for years. The allotment society was the best place to ask and many more clubs of this kind were founded.



I find it sad that, at a time when the UK is undergoing such a positive change in attitudes to the environment, these associations are disappearing because no one is prepared to run them. Most of those running the one we belong to are retired or very elderly and are actively seeking new organisers. I play a small part by pushing leaflets through doors three times a year and putting a poster in the window but I can’t help thinking that many people pay lip service to the environmental movement but can’t be bothered to part with the £2 annual membership fee or walk two streets to a church hall where these events take place. These associations usually offer a discount to their members which can mean quite a saving to someone on a tight budget. They are a great example of a local, green, community resource and in spite of a renewed interest in growing vegetables they are literally dying off.

There will be a time, not that far away in the future, when we will have to start growing our own food just as they do in Cuba, where every spare foot of land is being put to use. When that time comes we will need all the good advice of the members of such associations to make every seed and drop of water count. Let’s hope that they are still there to help us out.

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=82416

　

Forbidden fruit

The fig tree that belongs to my neighbour is heavy with fruit. I have a fool with a fondness for bonfires to thank for this. Two years ago, whilst in the process of taking in hand the neighbouring rundown property, he began burning bits and pieces one morning and kept this up for five hours. I was a bit concerned that he might set fire to our shed and then, quite possibly, our home. Before I went out I spoke to him just to make sure that he was aware of my concerns, just in time as it turned out. He was about to pull apart the fence panel that we had propped up to cover the gap in the fence (that our neighbour was in fact responsible for) and burn that too.

Most of the stuff on the pyre came from the garden that he had been “tidying up” and I mentioned that as much as I loved their cherry tree I was certain that it was responsible for the cracks in our walls as it was so close to our house. Half of it was leaning over the fence and some of the branches almost touched the walls. He claimed that the roots of a cherry tree never spread that far but the cracks in the concrete on our side of the fence told another story. When I pointed out the sticky cankers all over its trunk he said that it would need some looking after but I was glad to see that within a few days that he had looked after it to the point of cutting it down.

I do miss the cherry blossom and the sherbet scent in the spring. The cherries were nothing special but still edible. Some years ago I got annoyed that the starlings were the only ones getting the benefit of them and actually asked if I could have them. I had found a recipe for pickled cherries and was determined to use them for it. For several weeks I kept running outside to scare off the birds and finally picked as many as I could reach. Then I spent a sticky, juicy hour removing the stones. I didn’t have the right kind of pan for the purpose and used a Le Creuset casserole pan but I did have the right kind of preserving jars.

By the time I got around to cooking them up it was around 11.30 at night. I heated up the vinegar with the brown sugar and brought it to the boil. Unfortunately cast iron retains heat too well to allow it to cool down quickly when needed so the bloody thing boiled over and the boiling hot sugary mess ran all over the hob top. My eyes watered as the kitchen was suddenly filled with acrid fumes. There was just enough left to put the cherries into and I spent some moments holding my breath while handling a very hot glass jar into which I was pouring an equally hot cherry/vinegar/sugar mixture. It didn’t explode so I got something right. The lid went on easily and tightened perfectly as the vacuum was formed. By now it was 1am, the back door was open and the kitchen looked like the site of a dangerous experiment.

The next morning I proudly pointed to my jar full of pickled cherries. “They look like sheep’s eyes” he said and went to work. That jar went onto a high shelf and was eventually binned after living there for quite a few years.

I did make blackberry jam on one occasion and we were both surprised at how purple it was, I’ve always meant to make more. The strange thing is that there don’t seem to have been that many this year in our garden. I try to pick as many as I can because if I don’t the rats and the birds will get them and spread them around the place. As a consequence there are brambles and cherry trees everywhere.


I don’t know if the rest of the country has been affected in the same way but in west London we have been blessed with an abundance of free fruit. There has been enough of the right weather at the right time to leave the trees along the A40 quite literally dripping with fruit in shades of gold and red. I’m not sure what these trees are, damsons probably, but unfortunately their proximity to a road with high pollution levels means that I can never take advantage of that harvest (this doesn’t stop one woman I’ve seen picking and eating berries as she walks along even though I’ve mentioned the risks to her). The pavements alongside it are sticky with rotting pulp and I have to watch my step because their slippery skins and small hard stones can send you skidding, especially after it rains.

One morning I found myself peering out of the window at one of the self sown trees at the wilder (OK, scruffier) end of the garden. At first I wondered why its leaves were turning so early in the year. Then I realised that these autumnal dabs of gold were in fact the same kind of fruit that I had seen at the roadside. I had never seen fruit on it before. Even the ornamental plum, Prunus cerasifera nigra, is strutting its stuff in the fruit department.

Unfortunately there is only one fig tree but as I said I have bonfire man to thank for the abundance of them that now hang on my side of the fence. Once he had hacked down the cherry tree he managed to prune the fig in such way as to leave all the fruit on my side. Thanks to the way the shed and the fence are arranged I can pick all those figs the moment they have ripened. I consider it payment for five smoky hours and summers spent with the windows closed because my neighbour liked his Beethoven loud.

　
　
　

Gone

Recently I listened to a BBC Radio 4 feature about the increasing number of people in the UK who are found to have died without it being noticed. Their bodies have lain for years in council flats with post, including demands for payment of bills for utilities and letters announcing the termination of their supply, building up against their doors. The pension or benefit that is automatically transferred into their bank accounts pays for the rent that is automatically drawn by direct debit. The silent financial machinery that we have come to take for granted keeps their demise a secret.

The neighbours who said little more than “Hello” in all the time they lived next to them assume that they have moved away or are reclusive and don’t want to be bothered. As this feeling is often mutual the situation continues until a gas meter has to be replaced or essential maintenance has to take place. Someone breaks in and discovers the skeletal remains of someone who once had children, siblings and friends. No one has noticed the space in their midst.

At that point the good people who carried on with their lives unaware of the corpse next door develop a conscience and wonder if they should have been better neighbours. They may even take measures to make sure that the same thing doesn’t happen to them by seeing their family members more often.

Around the world others are disappearing for different and more sinister reasons. In the UK we would expect our police force to investigate a disappearance not instigate it. I can’t imagine what it must be like to live in a place where I had to fear them. The term "to be disappeared" came to be used in relation to those who were taken into custody by security forces in countries such as Argentina where it is thought that between 1976 and 1983 as many as 30,000 people “disappeared”. Although this type of activity is usually associated with dictators and countries with a poor democratic record “the war against terror“ has led to some strange alliances between the UK, the US and countries such as Pakistan, where democracy is in a fragile state.

Masood Janjura and Faisal Faraz were taken into custody on a bus there on the 30th July 2005. They were seen in detention but the authorities deny that they have them in custody. Masood’s wife, Amina, is leading protests in Pakistan demanding that the authorities release such detainees or at least confirm that they are alive. Please watch the “Dateline” video on this link. It is very moving and reminds me how difficult it would be for me to cope if my other half didn’t come home one day. My thoughts are with Amina and her husband who looks the sort of man I would be proud to know. If you feel the same way please take a look at the suggested action on the link.
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions_details.asp?ActionID=524

“When people lose their sons and daughter they do everything in their power to find their children.” These are the words of a refugee from Grozny whose son, 29 year old Ibragim Gazdiev, was kidnapped in broad daylight by armed men of Russian appearance in the republic of Ingushetia. Ibragim’s dad probably thought they would be safer there but he is now awaiting news of his son who he is well aware may be enduring torture or who may even be dead. Gazdiev Muhmed Yaponzovich wants to send a wave across the world to let the authorities know that what they are doing is being scrutinised and that light is being cast on their dark activities. He hopes that this will bring his son back to him. Be part of that wave and take a look at the link.
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions_details.asp?ActionID=522

Sanjiv Kumar Karna was on a picnic with ten friends in southern Nepal when they were arrested on the 10th October 2003. They were beaten and interrogated and, although six of the group were released, it is not known what happened to Sanjiv and four others. In the past Sanjiv had an opinion and expressed it, he became involved in politics as a student just as many young people do when they attend university or college in the UK. Then, just as many of us do, he stepped away from all that and got on with his life. Unfortunately as far as the Nepalese security forces are concerned once an activist, always an activist. His family have been told that he was killed during “police action” but this has been denied by the police. There is a chance that his body lies with those of his missing friends in Janakpur but even though funds to pay for the cost of exhumation are available and the police have a duty to investigate the claims nothing has been done. Another father, Jai Kishor Labh, waits for news of a son.
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions_details.asp?ActionID=349

The thing that strikes me about these missing people is that they are just like us and would not look out of place in my neighbourhood. They are the people we live next to and rarely speak to. They support Fulham and scratch their bums, they don’t like cheese and they will miss “Big Brother”. They are ordinary. They are us. That is why it matters that they have “disappeared”. It is important to notice and speak out for them because things have happened recently in the name of the UK that suggest that next time it really could be you.
　
　
This is dedicated to Patrick, a fellow member of an Amnesty International local group, who died at home following an epileptic fit. He was not found for several days but at his funeral it was clear that he had many friends who loved him and that he had been an active campaigner for human rights and those with disabilities in spite of being disabled himself. I am certain that Patrick would have had a blog if the internet had been available to him at the time. It would have been a more interesting blog than mine.

It's not the job, it's the people...

I’ve had a part-time cleaning job for two years and can still remember the sense of disbelief that it was in the bag. I thought it would be more difficult. Two and a half years later I have to stop myself snarling “I resign!” down the line to my boss. It isn’t her fault. The problem is the series of lazy idiots that I have been obliged to work with. Or rather, whose work I have had to do. We are told that any job like mine is being chased because the credit crunch has meant that we are all looking for extra income. That should mean that the people doing them are worried about keeping them and work twice as hard. Don‘t you believe it.

My colleague was employed by the company I work for to clean an office in the building where I deal with the communal areas. As soon as she arrived she informed me that she had booked a holiday and would therefore be unavailable for over a week. Fair enough, the holiday was booked before the job turned up. Following this holiday, her absences (often unannounced) became frequent and a nuisance. She finally told me what the problem was and it did seem that a close family member was in a very fragile physical condition. What I couldn’t understand was why she couldn’t explain the problem to our boss who is very understanding and quite capable of seeing things from her perspective. It was as if she was setting herself up to be fired.

When she did let us know that she wouldn’t be there it was at really short notice. I kept getting phone calls five minutes before leaving for work telling me that I would have to provide cover. This was a complete pain because, at the time, I was sharing my job with a person who was also in the habit of taking days off without notice. Apart from that she was absolutely unwilling to work on the premises the other person was responsible for as it meant that the people who worked there could tell if she was cutting corners. So I always had to do it.

This meant that my other colleague was earning twice the pay for providing cover when somehow she managed to finish both her work and mine within the same amount of time it would normally have taken her just to do her own work. In fact she got quicker and quicker at it. Cleaning work like this is usually unsupervised, you have to rely on the honesty of the cleaner and the astuteness of the people using the facilities being cleaned. In the past things had to get really bad before a complaint was made. The rising cost of cleaning and maintenance means that people now expect to get what they pay for. These days if the toilets haven’t been cleaned they say so. And frankly, why shouldn’t they?

The skiver was finally sent on her way after Christmas and I was under the impression that the drama queen who occasionally turned up to clean the office would soon be sent the same way. I was a little surprised to find that, following the termination of her office cleaning contract, she was now to be cleaning the communal areas with me. Especially since the words “I don’t think much of her - I’m going to fire her” had crossed my employer’s lips. A year after the day she first began turning up when she felt like it she is still phoning the office at the last possible moment to say that she won’t be in. At the last minute I am expected to keep things going.

She is the third person to have shared the job with me who has behaved in this way. They have in common the fact that they have been dependent on state benefits for years, in fact the latest one was receiving benefit but neglected to tell our company that or the benefits agency that she had a part-time job. She was good enough to explain to me that I might be getting a visit from the said agency as she had been able to read my name on the paperwork that was on the desk of the person investigating her. It seems that my boss had been asked to provide details of someone who could identify my colleague.

Two of the people I have worked with have raised their children on benefit and have only taken jobs because they were forced to. The third came to the UK as a child refugee in need of medical attention and was brought up by a family member who was already living here. She might as well have been brought up in care as she still speaks broken English in spite of living here for more than a decade and while working with me was only interested in finding out what benefits she could claim now that she was over 18. She was under pressure from a family she barely remembered to get them entry to the UK and a place to live. They seemed to be under the impression that, in a country as wealthy as ours, all it takes is a phone call.

I am left wondering if we have denied a considerable proportion of our population the capacity to think for themselves by making sure they didn’t starve. There was a time when people were embarrassed to claim benefit, it was for emergencies only and not a long term situation. I realise that we are now in a situation where many people have absolutely no choice but to claim but my exposure to three people with a strong sense of entitlement to tax payers’ money makes me think that we have screwed up quite badly somewhere. I think it is absolutely right to make sure that children are fed, clothed and educated but I can’t help feeling that there should be more awareness of where the money comes from on the part of those receiving it. I wonder how many in receipt of benefit understand the mechanism that acquires and provides that money. I don’t expect them to grovel in gratitude for it. What I want is that we end up with fewer people who are good at making excuses and milking the system. I would rather that they used that ability to support themselves.

Once people with that attitude are in the workforce they seem to transfer that sense of entitlement to whatever it is they are doing. They’ve been so well looked after that they seem surprised that they are expected to turn up and actually work. And frankly, why should they?

Nasty boys

The story of “Baby P”, the child who died following sustained torture and abuse at the hands of the people who were supposed to love and care for him most, has re-entered the news headlines following the disclosure of their identities. A short life, filled with agony, in the company of two violent men and a selfish woman. I doubt that anyone who has heard about the torturing to death of angelic little Peter Connelly can have felt anything but anger and sadness about it. The official disclosure of the names of those responsible for the dreadful cruelty that he endured have not lessened these emotions but they have given us some insight into how the situation unfolded. It is clear that the events that led to it had their roots in abuse and neglect that took place decades ago.

The aspect of this story that lingers in my mind is the phenomenon of violent young men, in this case a pair of brothers, whose anger and aggression to those around them seems to have been left to fester and evolve into the kind of behaviour that I do not recall encountering years ago. There was a time when you would almost expect it of people brought up in the way that Steven Barker and his sibling Jason Evans were. However I have begun to see it all around me and it isn‘t restricted to boys from “sink” estates. Nice boys do it too.

A few years ago I was in a superstore and an incident that most of the other people there would have missed made me look again at a woman who was shopping with two lanky teenage boys who I presume were her sons. Nothing unusual about that on a Saturday. What made them stand out was that one of these boys had moved in a way that had made it seem as though he was about to strike her to the extent that she flinched. And then carried on as though nothing had happened. The meanness of the gesture struck me, particularly as he was grinning. I was left with the impression that he had done this many times before and was delighted that he had managed to make her jump. Years later I still regret that I did not ask her if I could help because I suspect that what I saw in those few seconds in a public place may have been the tip of the iceberg. There may have been a very good explanation for it, he may have had behavioural difficulties or even Tourette Syndrome which means that the sufferer cannot always control their actions, but my instinct was that this was a display of power. I wondered where Dad was and whether he would have allowed this to happen. Perhaps they had picked it up from Dad.

The aggressive “pretend I’m going to hit you” gesture is something that I have seen a number of times in TV footage of binge drinkers, where police are dealing with troublesome crowds outside bars. Women in these situations seem to accept these actions as part of a night out. I can remember when it would have led to the person behaving in this way being punished by her partner or other males because it was no way to treat a woman. Why do women think that being shown a lack of respect is funny? It’s nothing to giggle about. Are they so desperate to keep that relationship that mock violence is to be tolerated?

More recently I was asked to intervene and protect a young woman who approached me in Ealing Broadway one evening. She had crossed the road to speak to me and a man who was standing nearby because she had been on the receiving end of loud and angry abuse from two young men at a bus stop. I had noticed shouting and that the object of this very negative attention had been a woman but even I was shocked at how terrified she was. It seems that she had found a mobile phone on the ground and had not been convinced when one of these men had told her it was his so she had handed it in to the police station nearby. The time spent waiting to prove his ownership had not improved his mood and he had been taking it out on her verbally ever since. She was clearly afraid that the abuse would become physical as she appeared to know these brothers by reputation.

We told them to shut up and that she had done the responsible thing and eventually they backed off. It wasn’t that difficult. In fact they seemed quite keen to explain their side of the story, proving only that she was in the right. The small amount of moral authority that we exercised that night was enough to put them in their place. Two girls who stood on the sidelines but appeared to be with them looked on silently but seemed troubled. I wondered if they would have to act as shock absorbers for the rest of the evening, having witnessed the diminishing of the power of their men folk. Afterwards I wished that I had asked them if their male companions always spoke to women like that, if they thought that they would eventually treat the mothers of their children in the same way.

I wonder if, had someone been firm with Barker and Owen much earlier in their lives when they threw their weight around, they would have been denied the permission they appear to have been granted to torture to death a 17 month old child. If, in the weeks before they tried to force their elderly grandmother to change her will in their favour by shutting her into a wardrobe, they had been seriously scared by her neighbours into leaving her alone and would therefore have been directed away from the path they took. This isn’t just about punishing bad behaviour, it’s about the attitude of young people to those they are in relationships with. It’s about providing them with a template for their future.

Since that moment in the supermarket I have wondered how many middle class women endure what I saw everyday out of the sight of their neighbours and are too ashamed to ask for support in handling their boys. It could be argued that they are in a far more difficult position than a woman in a violent relationship with a sexual partner as they are supposed to be in a nurturing role. It is possible to walk away from a husband/boyfriend but how can you walk out on your child? Or ask them to leave?

Tracey Connelly traded responsibility for her son for a relationship with a violent sadistic man and his equally nasty brother. Perhaps she felt that this was as good as it was going to get. I suspect she isn’t the only woman who has this attitude. Unfortunately her little boy didn’t have a say in the matter.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/nov/11/baby-p-death
Timeline: The short life of Baby P

www.guardian.co.uk/world/deadlineusa/2009/mar/16/rihanna-usa
Survey: Half of Boston teens blame Rihanna for Chris Brown beating

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jun/27/parental-abuse-domestic-violence?showallcomments=true
The day my daughter hit me

www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/2003_07_tue_01.shtml
Woman’s Hour: Hitting home

www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/2002_13_tue_03.shtml
Woman’s Hour: Fighting boys

www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/2004_10_thu_01.shtml
Woman’s Hour: Explaining sexual violence to boys

A fresh coat of paint

The blog has been quiet for a while and that is because I have begun redecorating. In the past this has usually been as stressful as actually moving into a different house, probably because I am made uncomfortably aware of just how much stuff I own. The fact that I have to go to the effort of emptying most of the contents of one room into another that is already full thanks very much is bad enough (twenty-six houseplants in one room). I then have to live with the interesting smells, debris and unexpected results that go with the process. On the plus side it does make me more inclined to part with at least a small proportion of the clutter I regarded as too precious to ditch the last time. What a difference seven years makes.

I have learned to treat redecorating as an activity that requires almost military planning (proper preparation and planning prevents poor performance and all that).
1. Clear room.
2. Cover floor and anything not to be painted
3. Fill and sand down where necessary.
4. Wash walls and wood work.
5. Paint ceiling. Twice.
6. Paint walls. Twice.
7. Paint woodwork. Twice if absolutely necessary and completely unavoidable.

Sounds good but in practice it takes longer to move things out than I thought it would and I keep rediscovering magazines and waste time looking at them. In the past I’ve remembered to save up newspapers weeks ahead but somehow I ended up having to look for them and there is always one little bit left uncovered (that is unavoidably on show) that received a fine spray of emulsion when the ceiling was painted. Of course you don’t know this until you put everything back in place.

The Attached One got lots of brownie points for discovering sugar soap in liquid form as something I wasn’t looking forward to was getting the powdered stuff to dissolve. I suspect I ought to wash and rinse one wall at a time rather than work my way around the whole room and then begin rinsing. I must lead a charmed life as, thus far, I have not managed to soak any plug sockets and electrocute myself. I sometimes wonder what would actually happen if I didn’t rinse after using sugar soap, would the walls start to dissolve? Just how dangerous is this stuff? How quickly should I wipe those drips off my arms?

When it came to the actual painting we thought we might save time and effort by acquiring a Dulux Paint Pod, a product that has been heavily promoted on TV. As we are planning to redecorate the whole house we felt it would be a worthwhile investment, even though it was going to restrict us to quite a limited and “safe” range of colours because it requires special packs of paint. Unfortunately it has turned out to be an expensive disappointment.


It comes with a very dinky brush designed for “cutting in” the corners but as the Paint Pod roller can’t go into corners without scraping the paint off the adjoining wall you really need to use a wider brush for that part of the job. The instructions warn you not to press the button too often in case too much paint comes out. In my experience not enough paint came out no matter how often I pressed it so I had to keep pressing it and put up with the really irritating noise that accompanied it. In order to paint the ceiling we also invested in the “extra reach handle” (another £10) but this made it too heavy and unstable for me to use.

In the past I have been able to tackle the painting myself but after a day with the Paint Pod I had to get The Attached One to paint the ceiling and put a second coat on the walls. The whining noise and the weight of the very small roller left me feeling shattered and he wasn’t in much better shape afterwards either. We have now dug out the old fashioned good quality rollers and brushes that we have used many times before and feel that, for the kind of result we expect, that is what is required. The Paint Pod roller is less shaggy than the ones we would normally use, probably to make it easier for the system to clean it but we still had to put it through twice. We also had to pull it apart to get rid of all the water.


I have refused to use it again so he will be painting the bedroom the fetching shade of pale yellow that was intended for the hall/staircase but we just can’t face the prospect of his reaching up that high while on a ladder and avoiding entangling himself with two cables. Especially if he has to keep getting down to reconnect it. Not using the Pod means that we can now use any paint we want in any colour we want so we are going to live dangerously and paint the staircase a golden yellow. I prefer to have the walls and woodwork the same colour but this has not gone down well with my other half. We have a lot of pictures and I don’t want them to have to compete with what is around them, including the patchwork effect of walls one colour, woodwork another.

At the moment I am just pleased that we have agreed on the choice of a colour for one of the rooms downstairs. It opens onto the garden and is quite gloomy, north-facing, so we needed something that would brighten it up. “Melon Sorbet” looks better than it sounds and will act as a good back drop for the pictures we want to put in there. We have been drooling over a new concept in home decor, the photographic wall mural, big enough to fill most of an average wall. We quite fancy the idea of having a window on a forest facing the window on the garden.


I am absolutely determined to get the whole house decorated in one go and reach a level of completion and tidiness that has so far proved a distant dream. Goodbye carpets, hello laminated wood floors. New clean curtains. Actually putting those pictures it cost so much to frame on the walls. In a way it has been another way of saying farewell to our late lamented moggy, whose fur I keep finding on the yellowing tape on cardboard boxes. He wasn’t impressed the last time we did this with the consequence that we never did it again while he was alive. There was a real danger that, having used gloss paint on the woodwork in the hall, he would rub up against it and then try licking it off. That night we shut him and ourselves into the bedroom along with his food bowls and litter tray. And spent all night awake while he ate biscuits noisily and thought about using his litter tray. Noisily.

Hopefully we will be able to avoid having to do this again for some time but it does get a bit easier with experience. I enjoy fantasising about painting a room purple and the choice of colours is far greater than it was when my parents had to opt for magnolia. At least this time I have managed to get started during the summer. The last time I did this there was a breaking news report on the radio about planes crashing into a building in New York and we were obliged to leave the windows open because of the smell, even though it suddenly seemed a bit too cold for September.