I Promise that I Will do my Best...

...To do my duty to God,

To serve the Queen,

To help other people

And to keep the Brownie Guide Law.

Those were the words of my Brownie promise. They've changed a little over the years, although the sentiments have remained largely the same. I joined Brownies when I was seven, then we moved abroad and I became a Sunbeam, then back to England for some more of being a Brownie and then onto Guides and Rangers. During my time as a Guide I also helped at my brother's Cub Pack. (Now that was fun!) Now I have a Brownie and a Beaver of my own (and no, you're not allowed to snigger at that!), both of whom attended Church Parade this morning. It's the church service this prompted this blog entry.

Church Parade was one of the highlights of my Brownie and Guide life. Now, I know that sounds a little unlikely, but bear with me. I was a church kid anyway, or was by the time I got to Guides, so no stranger to a bit of sitting down, standing up, singing, sitting back down again and bowing my head. The church I attended at that time favoured a fairly sparse style of decoration and I always looked forward to a nice bit of Anglican or Catholic fancy church interior, not to mention the eminently singable Methodist hymns. That brings me onto the real reason I loved Church Parade: the Salvation Army band. Now, you couldn't guarantee their attendance but when they did show up, and my memory tells me that was more often than not, you could rely on their brass section providing a rousing accompaniment to, 'O Jesus I have Promised,' which was my favourite hymn when I was ten or eleven years old. Now, I realise it is entirely possible that I was a bit of an Odd Kid, but standing on tiptoe to catch a glimpse of the tubas, while belting out the words:

O Jesus, I have promised
to serve thee to the end;
be thou forever near me,
my Master and my friend.
I shall not fear the battle
if thou art by my side,
nor wander from the pathway
if thou wilt be my guide.

Well, that counted for entertainment, in my mind. I seem to remember considering either joining the Salvation Army or taking up the tuba, but neither of these suggestions were greeted with a great deal of warmth by my parents. Later someone told me that the bonnets worn by the women of the Salvation Army were designed to protect their heads from the bricks that were often thrown at them as they marched through town centres. Frankly, those bonnets never struck me as protection enough from an incoming brick, so I was glad I'd never followed up that particular whim of mine. As for the tuba, well I was all but thrown out of recorder classes, so it's probably as well I never tried that either. Something tells me that, had I taken up the tuba, the chances of me having a brick thrown at me would have increased fourfold.

The tuba looks more resilient than the hat.

Sadly, brass bands are notable only by their absence from the Youth Service, but we did have a good singing session this morning. The vicar of our local church is due to move on to pastures new and this was his last youth service there. To mark the occasion, the local Scout and Guide movements organised a 'Songs of Praise' type event, where the leaders had pre-chosen their favourite hymns and they introduced each one with a little spiel about how and why it became their favourite. I learned some pretty intresting stuff here, too. For example, one lady told us that she had been a Brownie, Guide and later Guide leader for pretty much all her life and she has always lived in the same area. So, by her reckoning, she has attended nearly 400 parade/youth services in that one church. I know we've already established that I'm easy to amuse, but that little fact impressed me! Also, I learned that 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' (yes, we actually sung that and I like to think we rocked the rafters) reminds the leader of the local BP Scouts of Brian Blessed. Now, I admit I do have a head cold at the moment, and my ears are quite blocked. Therefore I can only claim that I think he said it reminded him of Brian Blessed. Quite what his link with scouting is, I couldn't tell you, although I am guessing that he was once Chief Scout. If anyone can enlighten me there, I'd be most grateful. Frankly, the link between these seemingly disparate facts has been bugging me all day.

"The Scouts are alaive?"

BP Scouts, by the way, stands for Baden-Powell Scouts. Confusingly, they are more recently formed wing of the Scouting movement, who prefer to conduct their scouting in a more traditonal manner. I'm not entirely clear on the distinction, although TR is now a BP Beaver Scout. I signed him up on the basis that the groups are small and friendly and they appear to have an awful lot of fun. Plus TR is, by nature, something of an indoor kid, who will happily engage in outdoor activities if you take the trouble to make them sufficiently exciting for him. So far as I could see, the BP Beaver colony appeared to offer exactly that. I sold the idea to him on the promise of marshmallows and I am happy to report that he has eaten marshmallows at least twice since joining. For all I know, the more mod-cons Beavers may be scoffing them every week,  but TR seems very happy in his Beaver colony and I like the fact that he can wear his uncle's old cub cap, once he moves up to cubs, which, by the way, in BP-speak are called 'Wolf Cubs'. Mercifully, the Wolf Cubs no longer wear the long grey socks and green garters, although a photograph on the wall of the BP Scout hut suggests that this practise was dropped only fairly recently.

I'm proud of the fact that my two are part of the Scout and Guide movement. I like feeling a strong link with the past, both my own and the general sense of Scouting and Guiding History. I also like the way it has it's own little subculture of rules and deferences, such as the left-handed handshake and the slightly odd names given to the leaders. (Actually, the Mouse's are known by their firstnames, but that seems to be the exception, rather than the norm.) I like the way the different groups keep common aims in mind, as demonstrated by the words of the promise, which vary slightly according to which part of the movement you are in, but which all express pretty much the same aims and desires. I also like the fact that you can earn badges. My word, as a Guide I loved earning my badges! By the time I left I had a whole sleeve full and had to learn to sew them on myself because, as my mum rightly pointed out, if I could earn my 'Needleworker' badge, I could jolly well sew the thing on myself!

 

So, come on folks, light the campfire, sew on your, 'Slightly More Enthusiastic About Hymn Singing than is Commonly Thought Normal' badge and join me in a rousing version of...oh, OK, we'll leave the hymns for now and go for a bit of that old Scouting number, 'Ging Gang Goolie'. As my parting gift to you on this blog entry, I'll share the following bit of trivia with you. Apparently the old campfire song was penned by Scouting founder himself, Robert Baden-Powell. He wrote a song consisting entirely of nonsense words, so that scouts all over the world could sing together and not be divided by liguistic differences. It was a lofty aim, although I think the message is clear: if you are going to write a unifying song, try not to pick words that will cause later generations to snigger into their campfire hot chocolates. Also, if you are a Brownie or a Guide leader, consider sharing the origins of this song with your charges. I spent an entire childhood baffled by why apparently responsible adults were making me maintain a straight face while singing about goolies. It took the advent of Wikipedia to teach me the true lack of meaning of this song!*

Here's a youtube link to the song. You gotta love the backing singer! Bless 'em, they look even more easily pleased than me, don't they?

* Small print: if you're not from the UK or otherwise unfamiliar with Brit-slang, don't Google that term. It's not all that rude but I can't promise you that your Google results won't be.

Corsets and Crinolines

The Ruby family have had one of those winters where we seem to catch everything going, sometimes more than once. It all started on November 5th, when, a few hours after the firework display, TR was sick. It's continued in that vein pretty much ever since. Roll on Spring, I say!

Today, three out of four Rubies are tucked at home, feeling too ill to do much of anything. Whether the smallest Ruby will stay healthy, or whether he's just biding his time, well I guess we'll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, there may be a global recession but I like to think that we're keeping the paracetamol, bathroom cleaner and throat sweet economies buoyant. Want to buy shares? Unsure where to invest? You heard it here first!

Today the Mouse suggested that she and I watch the film version of Little Women and so we sat on the sofa together and shared tears and laughter along with the March family. The Mouse is a big fan of Little Women. She's read the abridged 'Usborne Stories for Girls' version and even attempted the original version, although she came unstuck rather at one of the long sermons. I remember my mum reading me 'Little Women' and 'Good Wives'. I think I was around nine or ten at the time. I then went on to read 'Jo's Boys' myself, which was a cunning trick my mum often played with books that were a little difficult for me: read me part of them and then leave them tantalisingly within reach, knowing full well that I'd be unable to resist the next installment. She's a clever one, my mum.

At eight years old, the Mouse is already something of a book worm. She reads almost constantly, which obviously I am delighted about, although when she's reading instead of getting ready to go somewhere, I am sometimes tempted to commit the sin of agreeing with the Louisa M Alcott quote, “She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.” She also seems to have acknowledged the universal truth that, when you are too ill to do much of anything, a good sob on the sofa, to a nice period drama, is just what the doctor ordered.

   
Today she is too ill to read but is wise enough to know other ways to quench her continual thirst for stories. After the film version of Little Women, she asked to listen to the audio CD of Laura Ingalls Wilder's 'Little House in the Big Woods'. We are listening to it now, as I type. I just caught the line, 'And that was head cheese!' which, if you're interested, is some edible dish made from a pig's head. Can't say I fancy some at the moment.

Fun with a pig's bladder.

At the Mouse's age I was a book worm too. What impresses me about her book addiction is that the Mouse has plenty of other activities to distract her from reading, whereas I had pretty much nothing else to do. I often wonder if I would have been so immersed in a culture of reading and stories, had the usual distractions been available to me. As it was, not only was I a child in the technology-lite seventies, but I spent two years of that childhood living in a remote outpost of what was once the British Empire. We had no television, no toyshops: only playing outside in the surf... and books. I used to save up my 50c weekly pocket money until I had enough money to visit the book shop. Then we'd all take the twelve mile bus or LandRover journey together and I'd buy books in the English book shop: bliss! I remember clutching the book to me, cherishing it's 'new book' scent and desperately wishing-away the twelve mile journey so that I could finally start my new book. It sounds idyllic, doesn't it?

Tropical beaches, tropical diseases and a whole lot of reading.

On the downside, we fell ill there too, only with more exotic, tropical diseases: dengue fever, dystentery - that kind of thing. On one occasion I caught some illness that laid me low for two whole weeks. I had a high temperature and was delirious with it on occasion. A good friend lent me the box-set of Little House of Prairie, which I read avidly and thus begun a life-long love affair with the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Stuck upstairs in my room, while life carried on downstairs without me, I became completely immersed in Laura's world. In my delirium, Laura's pioneer life and my remote island existence merged, to the point where I began to hallucinate and, on one memorable occasion, ran downstairs in my underwear (it was too hot for pyjamas) and raved incoherently about jack rabbits. 'Jack rabbits! Jack rabbits! On my bed! Pa, shoot them - shoot the jack rabbits!' is apparently what I shrieked at everyone, to the undying amusement of the rest of my family. To this day, I remember being indignantly bundled back off to bed by my parents, who were both almost helpless with laughter.

Well, I'm not advocating becoming so immersed in literature that you can no longer tell the words on the page from the thoughts in your own head, but I am glad that the Mouse knows, already, what it is to lose yourself in a good book.

The Early Demise of the Televisual Viewing Policy



Before we had the Rubettes, when Mr Ruby and I were young and painfully self-righteous  naive, I remember Mr Ruby and I discussing a televisual viewing policy for any future offspring of ours. (It's OK, we didn't actually refer to it as the 'Televisual Viewing Policy', although I am aware that this hardly exonerates us.) I seem to remember that the policy included the notion that our, doubtless perfectly groomed, offspring would be encouraged to read through the Radio Times in advance and highlight any programmes of interest. Naturally, in the event of any planned-viewing clashes, we would hold calm and rational discussions as to the best way forward. This was some time ago, so I imagine video recording was mooted as a possible solution.



I say, Father, the Radio Times has some awfully interesting programmes this coming week!

Fast forward ten years or so and, frankly, I am amazed we even had the time to discuss such matters - much less the inclination! Clearly we were bonkers and very much PAC (Pre-Actual Children). I'm sure there were other pronouncements on a wide range of topics but, mercifully, time and the reality of bringing-up two small children has erased them. Maybe the ludicrous telly policy remains in my memory because it is so...well, ludicrous!

What actually happened was that both the Mouse and TR seem to go through phases with their viewing habits. When TR arrived on the scene the Mouse was three years old and I seem to recall a period of wall-to-wall CBeebies and the Disney Cinderella DVD. I remember a good friend passing on her top tip for coping with having one small child and an utterly dependent baby to care for at the same time, 'Teach the older one to work the TV and the DVD player!'  I laughed, thinking she was in jest, but it turned out to be sound advice. Then there was TR's Thunderbirds phase. He would come home from nursery and request the Thunderbirds DVD - four exciting episodes of Supermarionation! - except that TR was at an age where repetition and familiarity counted for a lot and so all we got to watch was episode one, the thrilling - for the first couple of times - Trapped in the Sky! On the plus side, Thunderbirds ignited in TR a love of numbers and he remains an enthusiastic mini-mathematician.

5...4...3...2...1... Building Tracy Island

Currently he has a bit of a thing for Octonauts, an animated series for young children about a team of animals who perform undersea rescue missions. What I can't quite figure out is how come this particular group of animals came together and why they were so interested in marine conservation in the first place. The penguin, I get: it swims and who wouldn't want to preserve their food source? However, the cat, the dog and the monkey I find puzzling,  and don't even get me started on the rabbit! What I do know for sure is that Octonauts makes me nervous. I've already mentioned my fear of fish Imagine my horror, then, when Captain Barnacles recklessly piloted the GUP-A into an underwater trench of such dark unspeakable horror that I had to leave the room.

Oh mine eyes - the horror!

Just as they go through phases of wanting to watch a lot of telly, so the also go through phases of hardly wanting it at all. Like most things, I guess, it ended up being self-regulating and I'm happy to report that, while we still occasionally buy the Radio Times, nobody goes anywhere near it with a highlighter pen and their viewing is largely a mixture of the haphazard and the familiar. Frankly, I wish I'd listened to Abraham Lincoln on the subject of television viewing... oh OK, so television wasn't invented then, but he does have good quote about policy attributed to him:

I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my best each and every day.

As good a theory on child-rearing as you're ever likely to hear, I think,

From Upper Slips to Under Slips: ballet with the Badgers

I'm taking a short break from my introductory series to blog about our visit to the ballet today. You'll have to wait for the thrilling entry about little houses and their significance in my life.

The Mouse and I went with our Badger friends* to the Royal Opera House, to see a performance of The Nutcracker. The Mouse is a keen ballet dancer and thoroughly enjoyed our trip there two years ago, to see Tales of Beatrix Potter and Les Patineurs. We had a slightly lengthened journey there, due to engineering works, but at least that meant we got to chug past Griffin Park stadium, home to the Mighty Bees.



Although the view out of the train window wasn't quite like this



We made it there though and took our seats in the Upper Slips, which are a very long way up but the great thing is a) I can afford tickets to watch a ballet in a beautiful space and b) the Mouse can fidget as much as she likes and nobody minds. Credit to her, she didn't fidget much at all, but she did need to crane forward to get a better view. At one point I worried she would slip right off the balcony, as her dancing feet got the better of her and she almost joined in.

The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden is sandwiched in between other buildings, it's glass house-like exterior almost lost in the crush, but the interior of the auditorium is really impressive. It looks very much as a toy theatre should, only on a much larger scale, obviously. The first time we visited, two years ago, I was completely wowed by it it all: the red velvet curtains with gold brocade edging and 'ER' emblazoned on them (as in the Queen, not as in Dr Kovac); the plasterwork angels and cherubs along the edges of the balcony, the Grand Tier and the auditorium; the blue and gold domed ceiling... it's a visual treat before you even reach the performance.



You can just about see the angels and the cherubs



Wrong ER

The ballet was amazing, the sets and staging were stunning and the music was beautiful. I'm not sure I've ever seen two harps in one place before; quite big, aren't they? You can watch a trailer for it here. The Mouse says her favourite part was the palace of Sweets and she loved the the Sugar Plum Fairy's costume and Clara's nightdress. She was rather eloquent on that topic and I'll try and remember her words. "I loved Clara's nightdress because it was so simple and yet looked like a ballgown as well as nightdress." The Mouse is interested in fashion and costume design and I find I learn things from her observations, which is good because I really don't have a clue about these things! One of my favourite aspects of the day is how it felt like a proper day out with her. She was good company and very much in her element.

Speaking of the Sugar Plum Fairy, I did find myself a little distracted during the Grand Pas de Deux, speculating on what, exactly, male ballet dancers wear under their tights. I know, and I'm sorry, but I couldn't help noticing that a) there was no VPL (Visible Panty Line) and b) Prince Coqueluche had quite a Grand Pas de Deux himself. Well, in the interests of your education, dear readers, I looked it up on the Internet once I was back home again and I can reveal that male ballet dancers wear a thing called a 'dance belt' under their tights. I would post a picture but, frankly, some of you may be reading this early in the morning. The dance belt is a cleverly designed piece of dance foundation wear, which neatly addresses the twin problems of aesthetics and support. It's essentially a flesh-coloured high-waisted jock-strap/thong arrangement, constructed largely from spandex. So, now you know. Consider yourself educated.

* Not actual badgers.

Heath? What Heath?

Good question.I'm glad you asked. Surrey Heath, as it happens. I live there and my house is built upon heathland, which probably explains why I face an uphill battle each year, trying to grow vegetables. Heathland soil is typically sandy and acidic: not what your average carrot would choose for an ideal home. Still, carrots may have one opinion, but according to Channel 4's 'Location, Location, Location', Surrey Heath is the 6th best place to live in the UK. I'm not sure we should get that excited about coming sixth in anything, but I guess we should celebrate what we have, given that we also received an accolade for having shockingly high carbon emissions round here. (For what it's worth, I've just put on a jumper, rather than switch on the central heating. Weren't me, Jack!) On the plus side, I've recently discovered that we have our own blog. Check it out, fellow residents.

In preparation for today's blog entry I did a Google image search for Surrey Heath and here's what my search returned:

Also not my fault.

Nice!

Good to know.

So what  has Surrey Heath got going for it? Well, apparently we enjoy 200 hours more sunshine a year than the UK average. Hard to believe today, as I look out of my window at a 'Tupperware sky': all grey and not a piece of blue in sight. We don't seem to have much in the way of crime. London is just a forty minute train ride away and yet it feels a long way from 'the big smoke' here. Our 'local' news comes from London and the stories aren't the least bit relevant to what goes on around here. Mr Ruby and I sometimes invent our own news stories, when the ones on the television news seem too far divorced from our lives.

In Mytchett today, someone forgot to stop at the pedestrian crossing, but no one was hurt...

The number 3 bus was a little bit late this morning...

and so forth. You're right, of course: not a lot happens round here, but then I rather like that. You, are, after all, talking to the woman who vowed to blog her Not Very Interesting Life. However, the older I get, the more I think I like an NVIL. Gone are the days when my young self looked out at the world and wondered when everything was going to get started. I used to make endless plans for the future and was always in a hurry to get to the next stage of my life. Now I celebrate the here and now, the simple things like domesticity, a cup of tea and a Quiet Night In. I used to wonder when I'd get to see the bigger picture; now I'm happy just to be in the picture! I think it's called middle age.

New Year, New Blog

Not actually my heath

Happy New Year, everyone and welcome to the new blog. I know it's the 8th of January already but someone wished me a happy new year this morning, so I reckon the year is still young enough to celebrate all that's fresh and new. According to our vicar this morning, we've all had plenty of time to break our new year's resolutions and now's the perfect time to make some more. Well, he's right, but it did remind me that I need to crack on with my original resolution, which is....

to write every day week.

I joined a writer's group a while back. Goodness only knows how I got admitted into that select circle but I love going and reading the contributions from the others. Only thing is, I have so far failed to contribute anything of worth myself. Pretty soon I am going to get rumbled and they'll all figure out that I'm there for the company, the coffee and the open fires. To be fair, I have a very impressive back catalogue of novels, children's books and information books. Impressive if you like opening chapters and aren't at all bothered by what ought to come next. I've worked it out though: in addition to being scared of fish (What? They're creepy!) and braided beards, I'm scared of committing myself to a piece of writing. Pretty much the only therapy for that is to keep writing and somehow a blog seems less threatening; less permanent, I guess.

You're wondering what I could possibly find to write in a blog, right? Back in the summer of 2011 I blogged about our trip to America. (Check out the makeover, blog devotees!) This blog is going to be more...every day. I'm planning to fill it with the ordinary little things that make up my daily life: pretty much the same old ramble I post on my facebook status. Marvel at the cakes I bake, thrill to the details of my sewing projects, be amazed at... hmm... I'm running out of ideas. If this blog were a film, it would be called, 'A Life More Ordinary'. Stick with me and I'll do my best to at least be diverting and maybe those clever writer friends of mine will let me stay. (I'll keep you posted on that too.)

Actually my heath (well, not mine exactly...)