Blogging Milestone: Post number 100 - in the garden

I've been neglecting the blog recently and so it's taken a while to reach Post 100 - I'd originally expected to reach this milestone during the Easter school holiday break.   I was also a little fed up when the teenager recently read a few posts and said they sounded 'cheesy'.  Perhaps she's right, but I'll keep going anyway even if it's just a weekly roundup read by a few loyal followers.

I've also spend a lot of time in the garden recently and I'm quite pleased with the results so thought I'd share a few photos.  The previous owner of our house had the garden landscaped so there are a lot of shrubs and rather too many conifers and Leylandii hedges to be kept under control.  But there are some attractive features too.  I like the Japanese maple tree with the clematis scrambling through it.  The clematis will have to be cut back, though, when it finishes flowering before it strangles the tree.  It's a bit of a brute.  I prefer the more delicate one pictured below but, in a bout of overzealous pruning last year, I seem to have practically wiped this one out.

I've dug out a little bed to grow a few fruit bushes and some lettuces.  So far I haven't had much success with the blackcurrants or raspberries.  Probably something to do with the quality of the soil or the amount of sun they get - I'm no expert.  They are looking a bit healthier this year though so perhaps with produce some fruit.  The lettuces are doing well, I have some spinach growing in pots and a few herbs.  Both my father and especially my grandfather were keen gardeners and I'm trying to keep the tradition going.   I have lovely childhood memories of picking raspberries, strawberries and blackcurrants at Granny and Granda's house.  Of course both Daddy and Granda had access to a 'dunghill', which was used liberally to improve soil, and scatter around flowerbeds etc.  That's probably the key to success.  Perhaps I should take a bucket and spade and collect cowpats from the field across the road where the cows are now out grazing.

Late again for The Year in Books: 'The Universe versus Alex Woods'

I've haven't got to the blog for nearly two weeks and am late again with my April record for 'The Year in Books'.  The reason for this can be spotted underneath my book: it's exam season and my evenings recently have been spent marking practice GCSE essays.  But enough of that.

'The Universe versus Alex Woods' is an excellent book.  I couldn't put it down and was sorry to finish it as I wanted to spend more time with Alex: he's really entertaining company.  The novel is about a teenage boy who had the unfortunate experience of being hit by a fragment from a meteorite which crashed through his bathroom ceiling when he was 10.  As a result he develops epilepsy.  It doesn't sound much fun but the way that Gavin Extence's character tells his story is full of humour, warmth and wisdom  Unsurprisingly, he doesn't easily fit into secondary school with his epilepsy and 'geek' fascination with science and the universe, inspired by his unfortunate experience. His description of being different in secondary school is told without any self pity.  I liked it so much that I read it to some of the students I teach as a starting point for discussion. And I thought I'd share it with readers here too:

'In case you didn't know, in secondary school - especially in the early years of secondary school - diversity is not celebrated.  In secondary school, being different is the worst crime you can commit.  Most of the things the UN considers crimes are not considered crimes at secondary school.  Being cruel is fine.  Being obnoxious is fine.  Being brutal is fine.  Being superficial is especially fine.  Explosive acts of violence are fine. Taking pleasure in the humiliation of others is fine...... None of these things will hurt your social standing.  But being different - that's unforgivable.  Being different is the fast track to Pariah Town.  A pariah is someone who is excluded from mainstream society.  And if you know that at twelve years of age, you're probably an inhabitant of Pariah Town.'

I also liked this section where he comments on the way boys in particular use the word 'gay, something that I find very offensive, in his list of crimes of 'being different',:

'Being gay.  This has surprisingly little to do with what you do with your private parts (or, more accurately, what you'd like to do with your private parts). ......
If you're a boy, any display of sensitivity is gay.  Compassion is gay. Crying is supergay.  Reading is usually gay.  Certain songs and types of music are gay...Love songs are gay.  Love itself is incredibly gay, as are any other heartfelt emotions.  Singing is gay, but chanting is not gay...Neither is all-male cuddling during specially designated periods in football matches, or communal bathing thereafter. (I didn't invent the rules of gay - I'm just telling you what they are.)'

The main plot of the book is about the friendship which develops between Alex and Mr Peterson, an American Vietnam veteran, and how Alex helps him cope with terminal illness.  It sounds depressing, but actually it was more uplifting/

Everyone at my bookgroup loved this book and I think this is a first.  I recommend it highly.

In May I plan to read 'Black Swan Green' by David Mitchell, which my husband has just finished and loved.  It's another story told by a teenage boy, like 'Alex Woods' and 'The Shock of the Fall'.

Accent and Identity: it's the way I say it!

My Northern Ireland accent is a great source of entertainment for the rest of the family.  Husband has  always found the way I say certain words amusing and goes out of his way, for example, to make me say 'vinegar' ('What kind of crisps did you get?'),  falling about laughing when I say the word.  Now my daughter has joined in and is very good indeed at mimicking me.  This amuses her school friends greatly. (She is a student at the school where I teach.)  On Friday evening we went out to our favourite restaurant in Chester, Joseph Benjamin, and the two of them spent the whole evening teasing me mercilessly, going through the whole repertoire of words I say which amuse them - shower, down, foundered (a dialect word meaning cold), surely, film (two syllables for me fil -um) etc.

Unlike down south sister, I haven't really lost my accent despite living in England for most of my adult life. She says it's because of work  - people on the phone couldn't understand her so she gradually changed the way she said certain words.  I have never felt the need to do this, expecting my students to deal with my accent as I do with theirs.  This is fine most of the time but a few weeks ago I was talking to my year 11 class about a poem we had studied last year called 'Hour' and they insisted  hadn't done it.  It then dawned on me that they didn't understand what I was saying, for they say the word 'hour' with two syllables whereas for me it is one (Aaar).  Michael Gove would not be impressed - perhaps he'll put speaking RP as a requirement on the new standards for teachers.

My accent gets stronger when I return to Northern Ireland or even talk to people on the phone from over there.  My daughter says she could could always tell when I was talking to her granda because the way I talk would change. There's been all sorts of research on accent and how people modify the way they speak in different situations.  It's all to to do with our sense of identity.  So I hang on to my accent because it's an important part of who I am.  

Seamus Heaney wrote about this too in 'Clearances, exploring how he and his mother spoke to each other.  As he puts it better than me I'll stop here:

From 'Clearances'

Fear of affectation made her affect
Inadequacy whenever it came to
Pronouncing words 'beyond her'. Bertold Brek.
She'd manage something hampered and askew
Every time, as if she might betray
The hampered and inadequate by too
Well-adjusted a vocabulary.
With more challenge than pride, she'd tell me, 'You
Know all them things.' So I governed my tongue
In front of her, a genuinely well-
Adjusted adequate betrayal
Of what I knew better. I'd naw and aye
And decently relapse into the wrong
Grammar which kept us allied and at bay.

Easter Weekend Treats: Eddi Reader and lots of chocolate

The highlight of our Easter weekend (apart from the chocolate) was going to see Eddi Reader perform at the Brindley Theatre in Runcorn.  I can't remember when I enjoyed a concert so much.  Down south sister had heard her interviewed on radio and booked the tickets for all of us and she and her husband came with us to the Brindley on Saturday evening.  It's a lovely theatre - only ten years old,  spacious and comfortable and not too big -we were three rows from the front. Much better than the usual smelly venues husband drags me to for concerts. (Refuse to use his word 'gig')

You might not have heard of Eddi Reader though she once had a number one hit in her band Fairground Attraction in the 1980s.  She did a few of old songs but most were from her new album 'Vagabond'.  Her songs are rooted in her experience of growing up in a tenement flat in Glasgow and she told us the story behind every song.  So we heard about her grandmother from Tralee, her father Danny with his habit of singing loudly after an few drinks and her Auntie Molly whose housecoat and red straw hat Eddy was wearing on stage.  She finished the concert by singing 'Moon River' in role as her mother, Jean.  I think it was the way she weaved a kind of family narrative into the performance was what appealed to me. Sister enjoyed so much that she's thinking of booking to see her again at the Barbican where she is playing later in the year.

Forget-me-nots!

I've spent quite a lot of time in the last week gardening.  This has not been much fun as there have been many tedious things to do before I plant anything.  Mostly I have been removing weeds.  Giant dandelions and thistles and that stuff that sticks to you.  This picture is of a corner of the garden which I have left alone even though the plants are really weeds as they established themselves in this spot.  I seem to have a large crop of forget-me-nots in various parts of the garden, but don't recall planting any.  Pleased about this as I noticed a tray for sale in a local garden shop for £3.50!

I've also been removing weeds and moss and grime from paving stones on the patio.  To assist me in my miserable task I purchased a 'natural' eco-friendly bottle of patio cleaner from the supermarket.  I applied it today with a watering can and now the patio smells like a chip shop.  Looked at the side of bottle.  It says 'contains acetic acid'.  Vinegar!  Suspect I purchased a large, overpriced bottle of pure white vinegar.  By tomorrow it's supposed to have started to work on the grime and it will continue to work for two weeks according to the instructions.  Unconvinced.

The Year in Books: April

So linking up rather late again with Laura at Circle of Pine Trees with my reading plans for the April and a review of my March reads.  I'm really enjoying this link up as reading about others' choices gives me new ideas.

I read quite a few books in March because I wasn't sleeping that well at the beginning of the month.  My latest way of dealing with occasional insomnia is to not worry about it and instead get up and read until I feel sleepy again.  Which is sometimes never, until I fall asleep early the next evening in front of the telly.  So I finished 'Expo 58' by Jonathan Coe and then 'Stoner' by John Williams.  Both books written by men and both featuring men with rather unhappy, disappointing lives.  'Expo 58' wasn't anywhere near as good as Jonathan Coe's other books with an unconvincing spy plot.  I liked 'Stoner' more - stayed up til 5am one night to finish it, but found it terribly depressing.  The central character supposedly falls in love with literature when he discovers it as a subsidiary subject on his agriculture course.  Again, wasn't convinced but there was something about the character and the writing style that drew me in.

I also read two other books which I enjoyed more: 'The Snow Child' by Eowen Ivey and 'The Shock of the Fall' by Nathan Filer.  I was prompted to read these by recommendations from friends and also because others on The Year in Books have been reading them.  'The Snow Child' was beautifully written with stunning descriptions of Alaska.  It also appealed because I know exactly how it feels to long for a child like the couple in the novel as it took us years of misery and four IVF attempts before we succeeded in having our daughter.   The ending was telegraphed a little, but still the kind of book I buried myself in until I finished it.  (Perhaps I do this too much, living in the worlds created in my head rather than engaging in the real world with the real people around me.)

'The Shock of the Fall' was also unputdownable.  I finished it in the airport when we were travelling back from Rome on Sunday and probably looked very odd as I couldn't stop myself from crying. Very sad (but not depressing),  and this time a completely convincing character.   I liked the unusual way the story was structured and told so that you had work hard to follow the plot.  Glad I actually bought a real copy as I hate not being able to flick back to reread bits when using the Kindle.  It reminded me of 'The Curious Incident of the Dog' and the author reveals in an interview at the end of the book that he was also influenced by Iain Banks' 'The Wasp Factory:'  both these books have troubled, teenage narrators.   'The Snow Child' and 'The Shock of the Fall' are both contenders for my all time top 20 reads, which you can check out here and here.

In April I am going to read some of the books nominated for the Carnegie Medal for children's books this year.  We shadow the shortlisted  books every year in school, getting students to read and briefly review them.  I've already read 'Blood Family' by Anne Fine which was excellent and the student in year 10 who read it agreed.  It's not suitable for younger readers as it has rather adult themes - domestic abuse and alcoholism.  I'm going to try Susan Cooper's 'Ghost Hawk' next, hoping it's a more escapist read.

I also hope to read 'The Universe versus Alex Wood' by Gavin Extence which is my book club choice.  Sounds more like my kind of book than last month's which I didn't finish, '59 Seconds, Change your Life'.  Teenager reading over my shoulder on the plane said, 'What's the point in reading that?'.  Exactly - too many statistics and very dull.

Roaming and Reading in Rome

I've just returned from a few days in Rome - a short break now the Easter school holidays have started.   Luckily the forecast heavy rain occurred overnight and we had several pleasant warm days to explore the city.  I've never been before and was a bit overwhelmed just how much there was to see.  In fact we had monument overload by the end and on the Sunday headed for the park by the Villa Medici to escape the crowds.  The collage below pretty much sums up what we did.  And a lot of eating of pizza, pasta and ice cream.  Husband's dodgy ankle meant we didn't walk too far so most afternoons were spent lazily reading and sleeping.

We stayed in an apartment by the Pantheon  (view from our window top right),  just opposite a primary school - what an unusual location.  The teenager was more interested in what was going on in the present around the Pantheon than she was in its history, despite choosing this subject as one of her GCSE options.  We were both shocked by the young beggar with bare brown legs and a club foot who moved around the square on a skateboard asking tourists for money.  She wanted to know why he wasn't getting any help. Good question.

Another day we came across this sight - rows of people reading in silence for an hour in front of the Pantheon.  I asked an organiser and was told it was a peaceful protest defending freedom of expression and also about the anti-homophobic legislation going through the Italian parliament.  I assumed they were supporting this legislation, but looking at the website I'm not so sure. So I feel a bit foolish now as I told my daughter that they were protesting against homophobia.  Shouldn't jump to conclusions, I suppose.