The lady and the shopping trolley

I’ve just returned from doing the shopping at our local supermarket and since we’re looking forward to the company of friends this weekend, it was quite a haul.

I’d very nearly finished and was standing being indecisive about which chocolates to buy.  I left my very full trolley and mooched up and down the rows of Bendicks Bittermints, Ferrero Rocher and Lindt, wondering whether to just go for a huge bowl of Smarties instead.  As I turned around slightly, I could see a young woman manoeuvring my trolley so I quickly returned to it, apologising for leaving it in her way.

“Oh, it’s not in my way at all”, she said.  “For one minute, I thought it was my trolley but I’m mistaken”.

She gave me a rather superior look, before glancing back down at the contents of my trolley.

“It couldn’t possibly be mine”, she said, and went off on her haughty way.

There, on the top of my shopping was a loaf of white, sliced bread. 

Not only that, but it was a reduced loaf of sliced, white bread.

Unpacking the shopping at home, my loaf received a similarly frosty welcome until I offered an explanation.

Anyone would think I’d been buying illegal drugs or something.

Splash

Driving through the centre of Gloucester the other day, I passed the leisure centre where a small group of youngsters were going in for a swim on a warm and sunny afternoon.  As I drove home, I thought back to summer afternoons spent doing much the same thing when I was growing up, back in Hull in the 1960s.  Except there wasn’t really such things as “leisure centres” then – it was Beverley Road Baths.

The green cupola there in the photograph is the glorious Victorian building which I find, is celebrated as a fine example of its kind, deservedly so in my opinion.  Next door, in the foreground of the photograph is the school I attended at the time, Beverley Road Juniors. 

The baths themselves were in two parts: there was a set of three swimming pools and a whole series of “slipper baths”, used by the vast majority of the local population in that area, who didn’t have the luxury of a bathroom at home.  Later, there were steam baths and saunas there, but I think they must have been a relatively recent development.  The swimming pools were open during the summer months only – during the winter, boards would be put across them and the building would be used as a dance hall instead, though the slipper baths stayed open throughout the year.

Going swimming then.  On a warm summers day, there would be crowds of us wanting to be in there, as soon as it opened.  We’d queue outside with our rolled up towels under our arms before buying our ticket from a woman sitting in a little kiosk (similar to this one) just inside the door, running down the tiled corridors with that unmistakeable smell of chlorine.  Our goal was the “Ladies’ Bath”, the medium sized pool on the left hand side – there was the men's bath on the right and further down, beyond that, there was a small, shallow children's bath.  Each was in a separate hall, and each had changing cubicles around the walls, hence women, men and children.  On some days, if a strict attendant was on duty, they’d maintain the segregation, but usually we could go where we liked and though we probably belonged more to the children’s section at the time, we didn’t like changing in there.  This was because the cubicles had only plastic curtains hanging, rather than wooden doors with bolts, and other children would come and whip that curtain open when we were changing, if we were unlucky!  We left all our belongings in that cubicle whilst we swam with no fear that anything would disappear.

Once changed, we spent our time dodging between all three pools – we loved the deep and very large men's pool, but every so often would dip into the children's bath to get warm.  We never had an adult with us but always went as a gang of children, all under ten, for sure.  I guess we could all swim well – I don’t recall anyone ever having problems and we simply larked about – no inflatables, balls, noodles, or anything more interesting than a rubber ring unless someone had thought to bring a penny, which we’d dive for.  On a normal day, we could stay as long as we wanted but on those busy summer afternoons, a queue would form for the changing cubicles (we called them “bunks”) and the attendant would begin to call people out of the pool in turn.  He did this by holding up a piece of clothing and blowing a whistle – heaven forbid that he hold up your vest, knickers or something equally embarrassing!  If he did, then you’d dive under for a bit and pretend not to hear!  Do this for long though, and he’d put all your stuff out on the side of the pool, so it could be risky…

Sometimes, we went straight outside and joined the queue again, to have another swim, but more often we’d simply walk home, hair dripping and swimming costume rolled up in the towel again, no doubt I was told when I got there that “I’d catch my death of cold” because I‘d spent the twopence on some sweets and not used the electric hair dryer on the wall at the baths!

I was a little reluctant to post a story like this here and bore you all to tears, but I felt I wanted to record those funny old times somewhere and if not here, then where?  How many childhood memories get lost along the way or simply get trotted out to a family who roll their eyes and nudge one another because Mummy’s gone down another one of her memory lanes? 

There’s been a couple of great programmes recently which have prompted odd memories – the most recent one being about Victorian Parks.  I had never given much thought to how much I benefitted from Victorian ideals, growing up in a city during the 1960s, but programmes such as this make me think again.  How lucky we were to have a beautiful park within ten minutes of home, a fine set of swimming pools there on the corner and a tree-lined avenue or two to walk along and do a bit of shopping. 

There’s an interesting site here with other stories of Beverley Road Baths.  I’m clearly not the only one to have fond memories!  However, am I really the only one to be old enough to not only remember wearing a swimming hat but one which had a chin strap too?! 

Oh dear.

Do da do da do da diddly day

That’s what we were humming as we left the circus last night.

We’re fans of this wonderful bunch of people, who somehow manage to put together a show which is not only thrilling, sexy and beautiful but also very clever, stylish, simple, funny and altogether quite enchanting at the same time.  As soon as we learned of this year’s show, we got our tickets booked and got the date in our diaries. 

Our friends are the Pimms providers, bringing along all the vital accompaniments as well as home made macaroons for the interval.  They look after us very well!

We parked on the common, attended by very smart young men

some of whom bore the marks of earlier encounters!  Sadly, the sunshine was fleeting and good as the Pimms tasted, we didn’t waste any time before going into the warmth of the circus tent, where the entertainment had already begun.

Gradually, the rows of benches filled up, we shuffled along to make room for extras on the ends of our rows and watched as bubbles were blown above our heads, played a silly clapping game with a clown and generally warmed up for the show.

Nanny gave us our safety briefing, reminding us to take our woollies out at the interval because it’s getting a little chilly out there.

The show began, telling us the real life story of Yasmine, a small girl growing up in the circus, featuring Yasmine herself as the top of the bill.  For us, however, there were other stars of the show.

The band were terrific.  A bunch of very talented musicians, who are able to fool around and still turn their hand to singing, dancing, playing a variety of instruments whilst having a great time too.  This time, there was a kind of eclectic thirties/forties feel to the music, a rather toe tapping do dah rhythm which stayed with us out to the car park!  We love them.

Who couldn’t love Brian the goose, seen here with a couple of little friends (the small sausage dog isn’t quite visible there in Toti’s bicycle basket) as he paraded around the ring a few times, much to everyone’s delight.

As for the clown, well…what talent!  Not only a extremely accomplished recorder player, he had us all in fits of giggles every time he appeared.  So clever, such simple but charming humour won over the whole audience.

 

The costumes deserve a mention of their own.  Beautifully made, all those little details on hats and shoes add to the style of the whole shebang – and by the way, the woman in the cornflower blue dress had just done the most amazing tightrope act which took our breath away.  What talent!

Two handsome young jugglers, a very clever balancing act, a most intriguing performance by an "automaton”, the like of which we have never seen before (and which was at the same time both captivating and creepy!) and finally, Yasmine’s  liberty horses, it was all over.  Humming that do dah tune, we made our way out into the inky blue night.

Next stop, our seats at the “Sauce” table under the awning attached to one of the circus wagons.  There, ready and waiting, beautifully set in Bridgewater style.  A delicious supper finished the evening off in perfect fashion.

Going to the circus was never so much fun. 

(Edited to add a few links now I’ve found the webpages of some of these amazing performers)

Road Trip Journal

A couple of friends have been asking me about my travel journals and how I do them.  I’m not sure that there’s any secrets to be learned but in the spirit of sharing what we do and how we do it (I’m always curious to see what everybody else does) I’ll share a few pages of the most recent one.

Though I’ve tried different shapes and sizes, my favourite is the Seawhite 195mm square spiral bound  Euro sketchbook.  The spiral is large enough to handle an expanding girth and the pages are large enough to be interesting but not too big to cart around.

That’s because if I’m doing one, I try to keep my journal going whilst we’re travelling.  I have a roll of basic art materials: Inktense watersoluble crayons, a few black waterproof drawing pens, pencils, a glue stick, a tiny stapler, single hole punch, scissors and a craft knife.  I also try to squeeze in one or two tiny rubber stamps and one cats eye stamp pad but don’t worry too much because often I’ll pick up something like that along the way.  This time, I had a roll of the Japanese Washi tape I bought in Tokyo with me and then bought another couple in New York – I needn’t have brought that first roll with me, need I?  By the end of the trip, when the photo above was taken, my minimal kit has expanded to include all kinds of stuff: ephemera, extra bits and pieces, fancy paper and stickers I’ve found.  Before we pack to come home, I’ve usually a bit of serious editing to do!

 

A road trip like this makes for perfect journal material.  Not only is every day different, moving from place to place provides plenty of stories and experiences to be relived at some point in the future.  I don’t consider my travel journals to be anything more than a fun record of the places we’ve been, the people we’ve encountered and a way of saving that experience for a day when all we want to do is sit and remember.  Above all, they are created for a very simple audience – those of us who were there!

Although I begin with plain white pages, before long, the ephemera takes over and the borders become a little blurred.  I usually open up the spiral and take out the pages first, because working in a spiral bound book isn’t so easy as working on a flat page.  It also means I can scavenge other pages from maps, brochures and postcards, using my single hole punch to bind them into the spiral as I go.  I try to get some kind of theme going fairly early on, in this case I bought a pack of paper and stuff from Michaels in Poughkeepsie and managed to stretch it out far enough to keep the consistent theme going.

I place great importance in telling the small stories which would otherwise be forgotten but which made us laugh at the time.  On this page, the rather lengthy greeting offered when we arrived at the gate of a large mansion we were visiting.  It won’t mean a great deal to anyone else: you definitely needed to be there!

I also carry a small hotel memo notebook with me and scribble frantically when we’re visiting stately homes and museums.  Often, I’m naughty and don’t pay attention to the main attraction – on this page a rather irritating woman was distracting me from what I ought to have been concentrating on, and I try to capture enough of a likeness to bring all those little observations back later.  I used to copy all of this out, “neatly” when I put the page together, but these days, the spontaneity is all and the pages simply get stapled in.

I sometimes include photographs taken at the time, but try if I can to keep those to a minimum.  Drawings are more fun and keep the journal different from my blog, my photo of the day and whatever other ways I eventually find of recording the trip.  I carry a little Pogo printer with me which is useful on occasions such as this, when the taking of the photographs was the story.  I didn’t want to fill a whole page with the pics, so did a small concertina folded bit instead

That needed a little clip to keep it closed but I could as easily have tied it shut had I but thought.

Normally, I try to keep up with my journal as we go.  Car journeys usually offer a chance for “the artist in residence” to crack open the kit and get the glue stick going in the back seat, but I’ve nearly always got a couple of days to finish off when I get back.  I did this yesterday and put the finishing touches to my Road Trip Journal 2010 in the studio. 

 

So there it is, on the shelf with memories from other trips and the annual Christmas journals.

When I went off to college, my Mum encouraged me to keep a diary to record what she felt would be a very special time in my life.  I kept that diary going for years and thought that she was right about it being a way of keeping those days forever.  Though the means of recording it all has changed, I am still a bit obsessive about saving all the special times, in journals, my blogs, in photo albums both online and off.  All of this is really for my own benefit, even though I’m happy to share some of it with others.  Quite what someone will make of it all in the future, who knows?