Race Riot?

Many of you expressed horror at last week's Kate in the Countryside, which saw KITC party to the worst case of sporting sabotage this century. Or so we thought. 

Trenton, mate, if you want to be taken seriously...

Then came Saturday: the day the world met Trenton Oldfiled. A self-proclaimed Suffragette of our times, Trenton is man so committed to the fight against elitism that he ignores the elitist principles of spelling even for his own name.

It was 1pm and grey when I left the Pad for the river. In my cautiously worn Blues stash I fitted in perfectly with the baying braying crowd. The mood was obnoxious and cheerful. 

Oh who am I kidding? I love the Boat Race. In spite of the weather, the banks of the Thames were heaving with enthusiasts emboldened by Pimm's. It was impossible to find anyone or to move. Cast up between a cake stall and the entrepreneurial burger table, I was in danger of accidentally buying a hot dog when my fellow spectators found me.

One, dressed in even more stash than I, had not worn a coat. 

'You must be cold?' I asked.

'No. I've got nine Blues,' he explained.

We kept moving to avoid all the other awful people, and they, us. Soon, the two boats passed, Oxford just ahead.

'Oh God,' moaned Nine Blues, 'it's only just started. We've lost.'

'Watching' the Boat Race by the Thames is a bit of a contradiction in terms. Though you are treated to a lot of atmosphere (read: tweed) you can't see much rowing. There's a good bit for about ten seconds when the boats pass near enough for you to work out which is which but, other than that, we'd had our allotted excitement. When the group in front of us were splashed by the convoy's wake and a girl dropped her drink it was already had one of the most eventful Boat Races I'd ever been to.

We wandered back down towards the start and its giant TV screen. We observed a pigeon. We wondered whether to have another lukewarm beer.

The drink-dropper seemed determined to liven things up: 'Hey look, there's a bloke in the water. Someone's fallen in!' 

This seemed unlikely. Rowing is a simple sport.

'It's a streaker!' I suggested optimistically.

'It's a protest,' volunteered a radio-carrying gent who was passing.

Like I say, you can't see much at the Boat Race. We called a friend.

'Some cretin jumped in. They're restarting the race,' he explained.

We all agreed that the crews should have carried on and got him.

'Would man's head have been chopped off or just gouged?' Mother Dearest mused, via text.

It was at that point we gave up on the live experience and headed to a pub. As for the #boatraceswimmer, we don't need to talk about him. That pratty little man and his God complex and his beard. And his imbecilic ranting. So we won't. You know the rest. 

But be warned Oldfeild: England is unhappy with you. And we won't miss again.

So this is January

Resolutions are the latest Pad fad. As January Fever sweeps the nation and its trendsetters, my Belligerently Optimistic Flatmate - though peppering discussions with resolution chat - remains curiously resolution-free. But then, 2011 was a big year of resolve for BOF. He deserves a year off. And frankly he doesn't need any more resolution-based knowledge. Everyone knows that all New Year's Resolutions are useful for is making conversation in January. Come February, the idea of resolve is long gone. No one cares.

In fact, BOF is the only person I know whose resolutions have ever succeeded. Last year he gave up smoking. Fully. It was such a success that it's almost an anti-climax: he now has to begin sentences with the phrase 'As a non-smoker...' and 'The other day when I was not smoking,' to remind others of his achievement. I think there have also been other resolutions involving sports, which might explain the Bikram addiction - though I'm not sure it justifies it.

My own resolutions are not so strenuous. The first was To Give Up Swearing. Now, this may be hard for readers of a child-friendly blog like Kate in the Countryside to believe, but in real life I am a bit of a potty-mouth. Old ladies faint. Rebellious teenagers give me looks on the Tube that say 'Blimey, that's a bit much'. 

KITC?

I'd like to take a moment here to blame my parents. Ever since I first learnt those words that have no place in a blog with its sights on Radio 4 serialisation, any approach towards swearing was met by Daddy Mason and Mother Dearest with horror:

KITC (drops pan): Oh balls.

DM (gasps): Kate Mason!

And so forth.

Anyway, the upshot of this has been that any opportunity to showcase the hilarious aptness and virile fortitude of a swearword, I seize with glee. This is true in workplace, street or Pad. BOF finds me offensive, a fact I find faintly amusing. His pained look makes me feel as though I'm home with the Rents.

So when I announced my plan to give up swearing this year he was supportive and - er - belligerently optimistic. For my failure I have only myself to blame. The enthusiasm with which I discuss swearing (two weeks into January) may have implied that I am not as committed as I'd hoped. And yes, on the second day - blessed relief - I dropped the S-bomb.

Over supper last night I explain to BOF the necessity of trimming the limits of my ambition so that I come up with an achievable and self-improving resolution, but BOF The Resolution Inquisitor is not in agreement.

'No!' he pronounces, with manic fervour, 'Kate! You have to give up completely! That's how it works. Or it's a slippery slope. [Here he charades 'slippery'] NO HALF MEASURES. None! Impossible! No "Oh I'll just have one cigarette now - that'll be nice I don't really need one": next thing you know you've smoked four packs and eaten a cigar.' Breathing deeply he finally puts his knife down. Verdi's Requiem starts inexplicably playing in the background.

So we're going for one swear a day. Don't want to overtax myself.

Sports and Sabotage

I was concerned to learn what a festive sports bout was planned for Christmas this year. True, the Christmas Day Run with Daddy Mason (DM) has long been a fixture in Kate in the Countryside festivities, but I could not have known that Mother Dearest (MD) would be adding to the sporting burden. The rents, it seems, cared little that such dashing about would interrupt the murder mystery watching and compulsive eating that really ought to characterise Christmas. 

Footie: days of yore

Of late a rabidly enthusiastic football fan, MD has taken her support for 'The Wolves' to the level of kick-about participation. So I was surprised to learn on my return home that Boxing Day was to be football day in The Countryside. Some public-spirited teacher had arranged a scurry of teams (largely composed of tiny children and old-ish women) for a high-stakes tournament. 

Team MD was a motley crew. Though Mother Dearest had cannily kidnapped two chaps to uphold our footballing honour, Dogface the dog was not allowed to participate. As a result, these almost adolescent ringers were fairly vital: the rest of the team comprised a non-moving man in goal as well as three tiny children. Though enthusiastic, the children frequently disappeared off the pitch whenever Dogface (mascot) was being particularly entertaining. 

'I shall be captain,' announced the younger of the two kidnapped children, Harry, adorned in full Premiership football fan attire. 

'But, Ced, I want to be captain!'
Tale as old as time itself

'No you won't!' said MD, ruffling his hair so as not to appear patronising. 

The captaincy was to go to our other ringer: blonder, charming and older. The Cedric to our Harry. Harry became sullen. So much for team bonding. 

The first match began. It wasn't long before all such tiffs were forgotten at the sight of MD moving with miraculous speed towards one of our (tiny) opponents. There was a clash that drew gasps and - seconds later - a yowling infant hit the deck. Amazed at the (for her) unusual experience of being the taller, MD raced on triumphantly, ball in possession.

Our second game saw Team MD extend our dominance. MD's assassination tactics on those half her size continued contentious. When a girl with pigtails scuttled towards me - her body almost concealed behind the ball, so small was she - I was terrified of going anywhere near her. Not so MD. 

Another child was floored, and the ref had had enough: 'Yellow Card! MD! If I see that again - you'll be off.' 

That was the end of MD's star footballing career I'm afraid. Fearful of the Red Card, she managed to stay out of trouble, but the aggressive flair was gone. However, Team MD won the tournament, so a managerial career might be more her style.

For Late Adopters

Late adopters of Kate in the Countryside have observed that - for the uninitiated - such an acronym-dense landscape can sometimes be tricky to navigate. 

It is for them, and for those whose knowledge of Kate in the Countryside is not as exhaustive as they might hope, that the crib sheet below came to pass. Diligent members of the readership would be advised to print out what follows and keep it in a handy place for reference. Perhaps an opportunity to familiarise oneself with laminating machine? 

Laminated items do keep better.
Just a suggestion

Kate in the Countryside began a year ago after the demise of my Carefree University Life at Cambridge. Returning from a month at the Edinburgh Festival, I found myself unemployed in The Countryside living with MD (Mother Dearest - of whom more later). The curious folk I found there proved an excellent source of solace and fascination. So the blog was born. When someone generously gave me a job months later, the blog travelled with me to London, where I found that the oddballs of Oundle were no stranger than those of Pimlico who now populate these pages.

KITC: Acronym of the name of This Blog. Also represents Kate the character at moments of dramatic importance.

Kate in the Countryside: name of This Blog. A misnomer (as is often observed) since I am no longer domiciled in The Countryside. Knowledge for the in-crowd, that. Like Magdalene being pronounced Maudlin. 

Pimlico: where Kate in the Countryside now lives with flatmate and co-star, BOF.

BOF: Belligerently Optimistic Flatmate. Formerly Belligerently Optimistic Future-Flatmate. This sobriquet refers to a sad time a year ago when we were both yet to be homed. But BOF's unflagging - if occasionally a little manic - optimism eventually secured us The Pad. A place with no graffitied doors and good-looking neighbours thrown in.

Pretty Neighbour (PN): Apple of BOF's eye. Attempts to seduce her / convince her to come over have as yet gone unrewarded. Though we did meet her once. Recently waking up to the fact that she may not be interested in boys. Bit galling, hence KITC's silence on the subject in recent months.

Spinning: one of London's gifts to the blog. I find myself being shouted and sworn at on a bike in a small room at the local gym with more regularity than I imagined possible. Run by...

The Shouter: Australian Spinning Trainer Man. He shouts. Suspect he may be in league with PG, who first introduced me to the local Pimlico hang outs and Spinning class.

PG: Pimlico Guru. Collaborator in Spinning sessions. Resident of Pimlico. Advisor in all things local. Word on the grapevine is that she may be leaving the gym. Updates impending.

Tactful Friend (TF): Non-Pimlico resident and regular facilitator of Nights Out. I have recently realised that such evenings always lead to encounters with London's Gits, for which this blog is very grateful.

Dogface: My dog. Interestingly, this is his real name.

Mother Dearest (MD): Mother of KITC. Teacher. Resident of Oundle. Recent adopter of Twitter. Follow her in real life (@msoundle) for the full metafictional KITC experience.

DM: Daddy Mason. Not to be confused with MD, DM lives in the Bahamas where he keeps swimming pigs. This may or may not be true.

Mysterious L: Most significant external contributor to KITC. True identity a mystery. Some say she exists only within the confines of the KITC world. 

On the road to nowhere (Morocco Part III)

Who needs Bogart anyway?

The man at the ticket office suggested a place called Benguerir instead of Casablanca. Little disappointing for our silver screen dreams, but only fifty minutes away instead of a trek longer than our flight home. 

'Is there much to do there?' MD asked hopefully.

The Ticket Man laughed. 'No! You stay for one hour. Then you come back.'

We looked at each other. It was 60 Dirhams for the two of us - about five quid - so we decided to give it a go.

Our train was divided into carriages that had been tacked together from what appeared to be the wrecks of six or seven different trains. We found a six-seater compartment that seemed to be women only. It was hugely genteel. Second Class, where we sat, boasted air conditioning. Outside, a couple of little boys played football up and down the corridor. MD helped a lady to put her bag into the rack, unhappily cutting her finger in the process. (I only found this out later. MD - not wanting to turn her kindly gesture into a possible litigation issue - discreetly mopped the blood away.)

The landscape as we travelled was oddly similar to Courcheval, albeit red-brown, rather than snow-covered. Scraggy trees were dotted about and the occasional donkey, but hardly any other signs of life. MD fretted about us riding blindly into the middle of nowhere and some 'one-horse town', a phrase not heard since the days of the Wild West. 

An hour later, we were there. Leaving the station we found: nothing. The train station was in fact a short journey from the air base, so there weren't even shiny guns to look at. The place was deserted apart from a cart-driver and his one horse. MD, chuffed about her earlier use of Wild West terminology, bought our tickets for the return journey and then went outside to hire the cart. It had gone. 

Majorelle or Oundelle?

On arrival back in Marrakech, we headed to Yves Saint Laurent's garden, the Majorelle, for a bit of shade, some cheery pottery and an ice cream. Inspired by the sunshine and (I suspect) heatstroke, MD began making suggestions for a reinterpretation of the garden back in Oundle. In particular the colourful pots. It's true, they're charming, but I fear they wouldn't stand up to English countryside climate.

Making the compulsory scoot round Yves' gift shop, it felt as though we'd wandered into the Armani store in Milan in boardshorts. The shop assistants tittered dismissively when we asked how much something cost and, when I dared to pick an artefact up with my hand, one came up to stand so close behind me that I could hear him breathing. I smiled at him, flung the little wallet casually back amongst its fellows - completely destroying the clean lines of the display - and accidentally trod on his foot as I withdrew to reorganise their soap presentation. MD, for her part, snuck up behind him to stand in his way as he retreated, causing another completely accidental collision.

Having satisfied our anarchic urges, we left - not even shutting the door behind us.

Racisme and French Lessons (MD in Morocco II)

Yesterday we went on a ramble round Marrakech to hunt out the train station. We'd been told it was 90 minutes by rail to Casablanca, so thought this would be an entertaining trip. 

Extent of my French skills

What we found instead was the bus station, though it was many minutes before we realised our mistake. As is their wont, when we entered the mysterious station, a number of burly-ish, drunk-ish Moroccan men started hassling us. My GCSE French gets rustier by the hour and MD (though a dab hand with cockroaches) is similarly limited on the Gallic front. You'll be amazed to learn she can't even speak Arabic. 

'TRAIN?' we bellowed to them, in a French accent, hoping to achieve some understanding. 

Nothing.

So we ignored the madding crowd and decided to explore the station - trying to make sense of it ourselves. We found something that went to Casablanca, though this confusingly appeared to be a bus.

A small quite sweet chap came over and addressed us in English:

'You want bus to Casablanca? Number 5. Here.'

At this, we understood where we'd gone wrong. But by now the burly crowd was upon us. One in particular was waving and aggressing with fists and face: 'You want ticket from him now? Not me? [Thrusting ticket book at us] I have ticket!'

MD looks fairly put out. Enough to make most sensible beings scuttle away in fright, but not Bolshy Bus Man, Oh no.

'See! [Again with the ticket thrusting in face thing] Ticket! You! You RACISTE!'

'Excuse me?' [From MD. Kate cowers. A passing bug flees in opposite direction.]

'Raciste! Raciste! Raciste!'

At this point it looked a little as though MD was considering whether to punch BBM in the face or depart. I stood back aghast, mumbling mildly rude things at the man under my breath ('No fat man - YOU raciste' etc).

But, taking the higher moral ground, MD turned her back and walked away, me at her side. BBM proved a surprisingly persistent persecutor of 'racisme' in tourist form, but he wasn't great at keeping up with us in the sunshine. We headed for the nearest taxi, and finally made it to the Train Station.

Turns out Casablanca is actually a six hour round trip. We ended up on an hour long jaunt to an air base instead. Of which more later.

Mother Dearest in Morocco

To Morocco with MD this week. A chance to observe her in an alien habitat (away from Oundle and The Countryside), it has already been an inspiring sight.

It was five minutes into the Departures area at Heathrow Terminal 1 when I remembered that MD-on-Holiday is a different creature to the one familiar to readers of Kate in the Countryside. 

We walked past Curry's (looting activity limited thanks to airport security).

She's got one (probably)

'I really need a laptop,' she observed, 'or something to carry around anyway - all I've got is that monster desktop thing.'

'How about an iPad 2?' I mooted, without much commitment. Technology and MD usually spend most of their time fighting.

'Are they good then?' she asked, stopping to look at a particularly shiny one.

'Yes! So much fun - and think how cool you'd look clutching one of those under your arm at school.' [MD is a teacher. A good teacher. Ignore the picture.] 

'OK. I think I'll get one. If you think it's a good idea?'

Amazed, I fell silent as MD proceeded to checkout, completing her purchase in thirty casual seconds, before scurrying out looking as though she might have done something rather daring. 

MD is someone who would normally rather eat Dogface [our dog] than listen to my opinions on which type of ham to buy from the Co-op, let alone be advised on the purchase of a frivolous piece of gadgetry.

It didn't stop there. Since our arrival in Morocco, she has killed four mighty cockroaches with her flip-flop of doom, haggled some poor bloke in the Djemaa el-Fna half to death for suntan lotion and - most impressively - learnt to use said iPad with such ease that she's now conducting witty exchanges from beside the pool, and plans to graduate to Facetime tomorrow.

MD?

Yesterday we took a bus into the centre of Marrakech. As we loitered, waiting to get on, the bus driver looked as though he was tempted to pull off. No chance with MD the roach-splatter about. She dived forward and bashed relentlessly on his window while he looked on in awe. He won't be doing that again, I can tell you.

For my part, I have befriended a cat (largely in hopes that he will eat the squashed cockroaches with which MD has littered the room) and spent much of the rest of the time cowering from beasts behind MD's mighty frame. Incidentally, she recently revealed that she has now achieved the dizzy heights of 5 foot 1, leaving her (as far as I can tell real size) of 5ft for dust. 

Forget Green Giant dear reader. What you need is couscous. 

Good Timing

If preparing to have small groups round for supper proved mentally draining, imagine the  confusion that ensued when BOF decided he wanted a polite drinks for his birthday.

While I have become more Mother-Dearest than is comfortable about Pad entertaining, BOF, for his part, is making a study of punctuality. For this, he models himself on the esteemed Daddy BOF (D-Bof if you will). Though, as a military man, D-Bof has some excuse for his enthusiasm for regimental timing.

Gone are the days when BOF would complain to me at the end of term that D-Bof had planned to be up at Cambridge for half seven in the morning to pick him up. Such timing is necessary, D-Bof would say, so that one can pack up the room, return home and be out for a morning jog by 9.30 - having purchased and assimilated the papers somewhere between London and Cambridge.

Will resist urge to go down
rabbit-pun route

The BOF of today would be pacing his room by 7.15, wondering what could be keeping D-Bof, having eaten breakfast, been for his pre-jog run and composed eloquent missives of thanks to the college cleaning ladies.

This does not sit well with Kate in the Countryside, and combines painfully with my MD-style worst-case-scenario attitude to entertaining. This means I formulate plans that demand we move all of the Pad's furniture into a single room to prevent breakages. Or fretfully tack all of our 643 fairy lights to the ceiling so that no one breaks a bulb and gouges herself to death on the broken glass [you know who you are]. All sensible policies.

However, BOF's time-love means that I now team obsessive list-making and furniture-moving with a crippling fear of being ready late and spoiling BOF's whole evening. Though since merely anticipating my probable (inevitable?) lateness is agony for the poor chap, nervousness feels like the only reasonable response.

Suspecting the other day that my flexible attitude to time might not be the best way to approach catching trains, visiting parents etc, I allowed BOF to advise me on the time buffer required when travelling from the Pad to King's Cross (by my reckoning, a twenty minute journey).

It was as follows: 'Right, you need to allow half an hour for getting there, then fifteen minutes to buy a ticket and five minutes to find a platform. And don't forget time for walking to the station. An hour!' Beaming at his usefulness and the thought of my impending once-in-a-lifetime on-time journey, he consulted his watch. 'Oh dear. (Crestfallen) Too late already.'

And though when BOF's birthday drinks started I was decidedly in the shower, he was   easily sedated with fizz and a homemade cocktail involving sloe gin. Something to bear in mind for the future I think.

Bugs' Life

Back in The Countryside, it is quarter past 12 at night when I discover the cockroach scuttling towards my toilet.



Who needs carpets anyway?

It's my first night in the non-Childhood Home back in Oundle. It would be difficult to imagine anything less likely to make me a fan of the New Place Down The Road (NPDTR). The place is quite short on carpets. And curtains. Also kitchen comforts, food, floorboards and doors. One thing we do have is - to MD's delight - one of those 'futuristic' [MD] ice-and-water dispensing fridges. 

But something else we seem to have acquired  is a pet cockroach. The house is dark and sinister. I retreat from the loo, feigning casual indifference lest it senses my fear. Dogface is in bed and, in any case, would be no use in the face of such a monster. The room is pretty short of useful bug-trapping accoutrements, crammed instead with boxes of childhood tat.

Eventually, tin in hand, I face the nonchalant bug. Cramming it inside, I lop off a couple of legs in haste. I assure you, dear Kate in the Countryside reader, the beast could hardly fit, so large was he. 

The following morning, leaving the bug beneath its box (with an additional bowl over that, for reinforcement), I tell MD: 'There's a cockroach in my bathroom MD.' 'No there isn't,' she says.

The good end. Fact.

Our former neighbours are visiting the NPDTR (see how friendly it was that end of Oundle...). 'There's a cockroach in my bathroom,' I repeat. 'Is it dead?' asks Lovely Neighbour 1 (LN1). MD shoots angry looks behind his back Mrs Bennet-like - don't mention the cockroach -which become frantic when LN1 offers to rescue the beast. 

Moments later, beetle unveiled, we all laugh at my bug-illiteracy: 'That's not a cockroach!' MD - who had been transfixed from fear at thought that The Countryside would know of her cockroach concerns - is nearly crying with relief. LN1 liberates the nonchalant bug onto some rubble, while Dogface skips about awkwardly, uncertain where he fits in the bug hierarchy. I can't concentrate: the rubble is a bit near my room for my liking.

Nearby Dogface is now worrying a wasp - my beetle is too tough. Stoically trying to munch the stingy beast, he gets whimpery and irate each time it fights back. Finally, the frustration is too much. He uses his last and most potent weapon. As MD squawks horrified, Dogface confidently pees on the wasp. In the middle of the new kitchen floor. He smiles his success.

Put outside, he barks at MD's new car. I know how he feels. We neither of us like change. A NPDTR neighbour pops his head around the corner, ostensibly to say hi, but with a virulent glare at noisy Dogface. Meanwhile, a duststorm arises from the building site chaos and I'm instructed to re-move removal boxes.

That night - Easter - the reincarnated beetle finds my room for the second time. A homing cockroach. Frankly, the new place needs to try harder if it's going to ever win me over.

Next episode: Back in the Gym Agane.

MD, Nigella and me

Worth it?

Back at the Pad, our entertaining ambitions have peaked with the acquisition of a Nigella Cookery Book. Laters to Jamie, at the Pad we're all about aspirational nightlights and tablecloths and cake. While BOF wows all with a selection of healthy and nutritious main courses, I generally stick to the non-compulsory element of the evening (cake). And, er, Nigella lipstick.

Dinner party pitfalls are many and varied. But both MD and Bofles (BOF's younger brother) were in London this weekend, so we knew we had to up our game: this was to be the uber-dinner party, where we gathered together all we had learned from the previous few.

As BOF and I readied ourselves for the MD-Day Sups, we stilled our nerves with the thought that we were entertaining veterans by now, and previous dinner parties had passed off OK. True, it would have been better if I hadn't cut my hand on a blunt knife last week while washing up and bled all the way through pudding. But BOF, belligerently optimistic as ever, reinterpreted the grotesque spectacle as symptom of our devotion to dinner, and our guests were duly grateful.

More blood injuries were sustained another day, when an enthusiastic chum almost sliced a finger off with cavalier cocktail-making and retreated to the bathroom whimpering. But a monkey plaster and a caipirinha later, he was only emboldened by his injury. Though perhaps I shouldn't have chased him and others out of the door with a steak knife when they admitted that they weren't keen for clubbing actually, and they didn't want a coffee from the coffee machine either.

And, yes, when we accidentally set fire to our (Mother BOF-loaned) tablecloth the week before there was some confusion: (BOF) 'Ah. What's the consensus on what we should do at this point?'. But from the brink of calamity Precociously Media-Savvy friend (PMS) saved us all. Just as the napkins burst into flames, she threw her glass of water in the the blaze with sniper-like accuracy. Soaked salad, wax and oil combined deliciously to form the main course.

But these small misunderstandings and incompetences just paved the way for the presence of Bofles and MD at our table. And on the scale of incompetence? Well. I ran out of time to make a cake, and then was so worried about my only dish not being on the menu I had to be restrained from compulsive baking at 7.45 that night. And MD managed to peep over the disproportionately high table despite her Thumbelina proportions (we gave her the only proper chair). But otherwise… people left on time, no one shouted, no blood was spilled or fires started. Pagan it was not.

Frankly, it was rather a disappointment. We'll have to have the team back again. Perhaps with the addition of the Fight Clubbers from down the road. That should do it.

Women's Institute

Even putting a glass of wine in front 
doesn't make it look good.

When I was smaller, MD would frequent the Women's Institute Cake Sale down the road from my now-deceased Childhood Home. [The coffee cake was best by miles, but there was definitely some sort of cake quota at work. Why else would there have been as many summer puddings as coffee cakes? Who wants a scraggy mound with fruit in instead of succulent cakey goodness?]


These cake sales were terrifying. Half an hour before they opened, hordes of kindly-looking old ladies thronged the village hall doors chatting contentedly. Once inside, however, these old dears would think nothing of trampling each other into the ground over a medium-sized carrot cake. 


As the smallest, I was employed by MD to sneak through the mob and grab the best-looking cake, before retreating to the CH.


It was at orchestra last week that I was reminded of the terror I'd felt around the countryside's mobster grannies. Here, instead of cake, it was artistic recognition for which they fought.

So, hours before the concert, my friend and I realised we couldn't find our usual seats. We'd been ejected from our mildly prominent stand to seats at the back, out of sight, behind a pillar. The sweetly-smiling violinist ladies had manoeuvred themselves forwards with dastardly cunning.

Mabel

You'd think this would be enough Machiavellian activity for one evening of classical music, but no. Next to us (behind the pillar), sat Mabel.


Mabel can no longer hear very well, but continues to play with atonal confidence. Beside her sits Lin-May. She's in fact rather good, but she can't speak much English, and Mabel finds the language barrier a useful excuse to offer Lin-May advice on her playing. Shouting over the quiet solemn passages and whispering in the loud, Mabel confuses and embarrasses Lin-May equally, but communicates little.


At the interval, Mabel shuffled about onstage, moving people's music (to conform to her own mysterious system), and causing chaos.

As the start of the second half approaches Lin-May and Mabel are nowhere to be seen. Privately, I fear Mabel's locked her friend in a cupboard, though it might be somewhere more sinister. Mabel appears - tutting and fretting and shouting over the tuning, 'Where's the silly girl got to now?' in best beleaguered schoolteacher fashion.


At last, Lin-May appears with moments to spare and in complete disarray:

'Where did you get to this time?' Mabel demands, delighted.

'I can't find my glasses! They're my only pair!' 

'You can't have lost them again? For goodness' sake!' 

'I can't play now,' mumbles Lin-May, close to tears.

'Are they these?' Mabel enquires innocently, plucking Lin-May's distinctive glasses from her bag with a flourish. 'You'd better put them on then - they might come in useful helping you find the notes. Or maybe not...' And, with an air of great generosity, looking as though she'd just beaten her to the last coffee cake, she handed the glasses to Lin-May.

Goodbye Childhood Home (the conclusion)

Well, bye then.

This weekend was the last spent in my Childhood Home, whose impending decline was where Kate in the Countryside started last year.

When I was last at home, Dogface was doing his best to be as disconcertingly unfriendly and yappy as possible towards the couple who have bought the house, the Childhood Home Usurpers. This culminated in a notable incident where he tactically crapped in their path and fled. How things have changed. Now, when the CHU turn up (enthusiastic dog-owners themselves), treacherous Dogface starts gambolling about with enthusiasm and delight. They've even been taking him for walks apparently....

At least Childhood Home itself is not so fickle. Strapped for storage space, the CHU asked if they could keep some of their stuff in our - now empty - garage. MD agreed. Clearly unenthused, the garage retaliated in triumphant style when its roof collapsed on the boxes, moments after the CHU had moved in their things.

'Well that's never happened before,' I observed nonchalantly, brushing dust off them.

And packing is dull. The Cupboard of Terror on the top floor of the house in particular took an astonishing amount of time. I was told to extract the things I wanted from within the cavernous pit. Sifting through my childhood hoardings elicited many treasures, including: a small novelty tennis racquet wrapped in a golden cape, seven fake witches nails, half a Polly Pocket (blue), a locked briefcase with an unopenable combination and - bafflingly - three standard pound coins, stuck together to form a small tower.

Even as I boxed these items on a sunny Sunday (in the box marked 'Very Special Things': don't worry - they've been saved) with MD next door to protect me, the Cupboard of Terror seemed as terrible as ever.

Even the door I'd been sure to prop firmly open left me with no certainty that I was safe. Might it not spring shut and lock me in - as it had on that day sixteen years ago when three pals and I had thought it the perfect hiding spot? Sadly the adults (from whom we hid) didn't realise the game. They were not even looking for us and, once locked, the CoT was unopenable from within. That the four of us are still here today is a miracle of initiative and DIY.

Elsewhere, mouldy accessories from the hotel I once started in my bedroom (I was the Manager. Hapless friends were deemed 'Bellboy' or, if they were very lucky, 'Waitress'), fell stickily down from various crannies. Dogface munched the small soaps and flannels as snacks.

Later, we had an impromptu drinks party to say goodbye to the place, where MD's friends asked me whether I was sad to be leaving until I was. Then Dogface and I ran about in the garden one last time and MD drove me back to the station. 

Every memory I have from home seems to have happened in lovely sunlight or snow. To me, the mental image I have of CH looks like a Cambridge University Prospectus drawn by the Wizard of Oz.

If you remember anything from Lorne House that you want to leave at the bottom here that would be tremendous. Thanks chaps.

Next episode: The Women's Institute