Monday 12th May
The last time I wrote I neglected to mention the quite excellent weekend I enjoyed with Yul and Me'Julie, at their new pub in Derby, Not The Tree. Not The Tree is a vast place, eminently suited to live music since it is L-shaped and you could fit hundreds of people in, or the Tree three times if preferred. However, the brewery sadly despise live music and so Not The Tree is rather quiet in the evenings. That's an understatement by the way - after our excellent meal in Yul and Me'Julie's lovely big flat, we went downstairs for a drink. It was 10pm on a Saturday night. There were five people there.
An excellent time was had by all, or at least by Mr Z and me: we made the most of the fact that we were staying above the pub and therefore neither of us had to drive. Yul and Me'Julie seem to have settled in quiet well, and are popular because they make the effort to go and chat to people rather than just hiding in their flat. The place is full of Nottingham Forest supporters; Yul said he went into the bar wearing a Wolves shirt during the game that Forest lost to Wolves, which went down "like a lead balloon" - but the fact that they didn't kick his head in is, surely, a good sign.
We left Yul and Me'Julie's on Sunday and popped in to see my grandparents since they were on the route home. This showed particularly good timing on my part - almost as though Someone had stepped in and guided my steering wheel - since sadly, Grandad Hand passed away some two weeks later. This was very sudden and very sad, but he timed it very well, since he and Nanny Hand had just spent a month with Father Hand in Las Vegas, and Uncle Dave was visiting from Australia with the future Aunty Karin. Uncle Phil managed to make it to the hospital in time and Grandad slipped away shortly after lunch on a Tuesday.
This then led to, a week later, a very important day.
The funeral was a big family affair. My cousins flew in from New Zealand and Father Hand flew in from the States, business class (and I should think so too after nearly having to pay $3000 for his plane ticket), so the whole family was under one roof (even Grandad Hand, corporeally) for the first time, erm, ever. Father Hand had in fact never met Cousin Michelle, who is 18 now and has the sulky expression to prove it, when she is wearing a skirt. Anyway, there are seven of us grandchildren, myself and Mich being the only girl children...
An aside. My grandparents had three sons. Their three sons had, between them, five sons and two daughters. Mr Z's parents had two sons. Sibling Z went on to have two sons. This is surely a sign that if Mr Z and I ever have children, they will be boys. Another reason not to breed.
...and so it was decided that Mich should ride with Nanny Hand in the funeral car (although she was in the end usurped by Karin) and the rest of us grandchildren should carry the coffin. "And don't drop him!" warned Uncle Dave as he broke the news to me, "or you'll heap shame on the whole family." Oh, so no pressure then.
It turned out I was not the only one who was slightly nervous. Cousin Martin and Cousin Pete both expressed similar fears although perhaps more marked - there was the worry that the coffin would drop, break open and Grandad Hand would make a break for freedom. The others seemed nervous but we had a good old Hand black humour cackle about the whole thing, and then all breathed a sigh of relief when the funeral directors provided us with a handy trolley so, in fact, we only had to wheel it into the church. The church itself was absolutely packed with well-wishers from the variety of places Grandad Hand has worked during his time with the Church, and there was time for everyone to stand up and say what they remembered the most. Sitting in the front row, I found my eyes morbidly drawn to the coffin. Was he dressed in a hospital gown or had they provided other clothes? Were his eyes open? Was he smiling? Had they crossed his arms across his chest? Such macabre pondering served to drive home the reality of the situation and I found myself getting quite choked, a situation which only worsened when Mother Hand got up to say her piece, so much so that I couldn't collect my thoughts enough to getup and say mine.
A lot of people talk about Grandad Hand as being tolerant, and loving you no matter what you did. This reminded me of a time when, at the age of about 10, I got my hands on an Irish joke book and memorised half of it without really understanding. We were all sitting up to dinner telling jokes and...
Me: "I've got a joke, but I don't know if it's rude or not...
Mother Hand: Then don't tell it!
Me: (Tells joke which as something to do with a nun, some monks and a deflowering)
Mother and Father Hand: Look at me, horrified, as though wishing they could turn back time and erase what I just said
Grandad Hand: Ha! Ha! Ha! Yes, that is rude... Hahaha
The thing that nobody mentioned, though, in their description of Grandad Hand, was his relationship with Nanny Hand. Without wishing to belittle my parents, the relationship between my grandparents serves a sthe best argument for marriage I can think of. They were married for over 50 years and, as I have mentioned here before, could still laugh together, pick on each other and showed such a care for each other that I can't imagine ever seeing a relationship the same. I think, if I could guarantee a relationship would survive like that for over half a century, I would be running up that aisle tripping over my dress. Of course, now Grandad Hand is gone there would be someone else waiting at the other end to perform the ceremony, but you get my point. Their relationship was as seemingly close to perfect as I have ever seen.
Anyway, after all that chat, we wheeled the coffin out to the hearse and stuffed ourselves on sandwiches and cake, even me, and even Uncle Phil, who has had considerable success since Christmas on the Atkins diet. Then we got off to the crematorium, some of us arriving later than others, the directions "off a roundabout in Redditch" not actually being any help at all. At this point the funeral directors managed to roll the coffin over my hand which was understandably painful, and we grandkids had to carry it up the steps and into the crem, in spite of the fact we'd been told not to use the handles which wouldn't support it. We did in the end, and luckily they held up, and I think everyone was relieved once it was over. We adjourned to the homestead where a brief break in the pouring rain gave us a chance to get into the garden and have pictures taken in different combinations of family. Poor Mich, who, being 18, despises having her picture taken almost as much as she despises wearing skirts, found herself being forcibly dragged across the gravel in her heels by me. Evidently I was missing being at school and bending my pupils to my will.
After that, we all just hung around napping, picking at the leftover sandwiches and looking at the hundreds of cards from well-wishers. Mother Hand, Sibling Hand and I left shortly after 5 to return to the Nova, holed up in a service station near Oxford, so that I could get home. This was a shame since the whole family hadn't been together like that for so long, but Father Hand had passed out by then anyway, exhausted from the flight, and, although I like all the members of my family and enjoy their company to some extent, after a certain length of time it does become apparent that we all have very little in common other than the fact our kidneys are perfect matches. Neverhteless, I probably would have hung around longer if it wasn't for the fact that we had to get the Nova back to Bristol.
This is a whole other story.
"I think I should take your car - there's not enough leg room in the Mini," I informed Mr Z when I had decided to go and collect Sibling Hand and, thereafter, Father Hand from Heathrow before driving to Redditch. This meant that Mr Z had to sort out a radio for the Nova, a process which took about five hours of fiddling around and people driving in from Fishponds and so on. So, on Monday, after a day at INSET training, I drove off to London, pausing for a couple of hours at a Reading service station to wait out rush hour with a set of Year Nine books to mark, and eventually arrived at Sibling Hand's house shortly before he arrived home from college. None of my London friends ("You never come and visit!") were around so instead I had to sit in Sibling Hand's kitchen dropping fag ash on a set of Year Eight Civil War essays I had had three weeks to mark. Sibling Hand and I then sat up until 1am talking about old family holidays and recipes for chicken salad, and then I dozed off, only to be woken at 4.30am by Sibling Hand's alarm which is even more obnoxious than mine. A quick shower woke me up and we left for the airport about 5.15am.
The Nova didn't sound happy. I informed Sibling Hand that it was just cold.
We arrived at Heathrow with minutes to spare. Father Hand arrived looking tired but pleased to see us, and we got into the Nova and barrelled off up the M40. To come clean, I was going rather fast. Sort of, about 80 mph most of the way. But around 7.45, near Oxford, the litre of diet coke I had had for breakfast filtered through and I had to pull off at the services.
The Nova pulled around the roundabout and into the carpark wheezing like the policeman in the Simpsons running a marathon. It squeaked a bit. "Can someone look at the tyres for me before we go, I think they're a bit flat?" I asked hopefully, as the car coughed asthmatically and stalled, just as I turned into a parking space. It never started again. We went off to get a coffee and tried it later, but it still wasn't working. Father Hand tried to blow into the fuel tank but found his nose obstructed his lips, so I did it instead, with him behind me saying, "Girls are good at this" to my brother and visions in my head of petrol spurting up into my mouth. I carried on until the petrol fumes threatened to make me sick and Sibling Hand got into the driver's seat, which dropped the car about three inches and bruised my nose. No amount of pummelling the pedals worked, so in the end we rang Nanny Hand and Uncle Phil was dispatched to rescue us.
Father and Sibling Hand calmly sat in the car, reading the Guardian and eating bacon sandwiches. Meanwhile, I scoffed some fruit, trying to PRETEND they were bacon sandwiches, and rang the Parents Z, Mother Hand and Mr Z to try and get some advice. "It's your fuel pump," said Father Hand. "It's the carburretor," ventured Sibling Hand.
"It's the cam belt," said the AA man, 10 hours later. Mother Hand luckily has an AA membership, which she had intended to transfer into my name, but forgot. So instead she said she was a passenger in my car. This was obviously a lie jeopardised by the fact that she had her own car with her, and made no attempt to pretend it was anyone else's. We had to create rather a fancy story quite quickly, then, and try to transmit it to Sibling Hand so he could corroborate.
Eternity ticked by. It would have been £500 to tow me back to Bristol. Sibling Hand had to get back to London for work the next day, and Mother Hand could not drive us both home. The AA were shirty about towing me back without her because she's called them out 31 times in 10 years (and, by the way, they have NEVER fixed her car by the side of the roa,d in spite of their lofty claims). I nearly started crying: exhaustion had begun to set in by this point, and had been secretly pleased that it was unfixable because the thought of driving home was just making me more tired. In the end I went and sat in the car, talked to Mr Z and prayed a last ditch prayer, loosely adapting a theme from the funeral ("I'm expecting a miracle - can I have one please?"). The next thing I know, the AA man is looking all pissed off because he's going to have to do overtime and the Nova is beeing hooked up to the back of his van. I finally made it home around 10pm and fell into bed. My teaching for the rest of the week was borderline since I was having trouble even staying awake, but thankfully the car got home and we didn't drop Grandad.
The Nova has recovered now. Our friendly mechanic came out on Bank Holiday Sunday and fixed it, bless him. He also sounded amazed that I hadn't written the whole car off ("It only cost me a pound so I wouldn't have been bothered," said Mr Z) but didn't say that driving it too fast can cause the problem I had. It was also leaking petrol - the result of my hurricane force blowing, perhaps - so it was just as well to get it looked at. Then last week I got a flat on the Mini so it was a double blessing that it was handy.
I'm at school at the moment. My mentor decided to postpone my meeting today until 3.45pm because she's hurt her foot, which leaves me at rather a loose end. But I think I'd better go and do something more profitable now.
Saturday 17th May
It has been brought to my attention that a fair number of players of a particular shoot 'em up game with a large national following have come to believe that I am one of their number, an excellent gamer by the name of "Soupdragon". I would like to set the record straight. I am not Soupdragon. I am not a boy. I don't play games unless they're Puzzle Trouble or Freecell. I simply don't have the time to while away hours shooting Nazis and popping out for the odd cigar. Soupdragon is the pseudonym for my ever-loving boyfriend, Mr Z. He has his own website, here. There is one picture of him on my website. But it's relatively difficult to find and isn't labelled with any of the names I have previously mentioned.
Me, a gamer indeed. The very thought!
A sad thing. You may not be reading this. You may not even be able to access my site. Woe! My useful providers have decided to close themselves down, in spite of the fact they still owe me another four months' hosting according to the terms of our agreement. Apparently the Florida attorney general is fighting on my behalf. I am *so* reassured by that, as you might imagine. Although I might have to move the site again, hopefully it won't be noticeable, since the domain name will remain the same. But apparently there are no guarantees (sigh). Such a hassle. I should just write all this on pieces of paper and then stick them to lamposts, at least then I wouldn't have to worry about unscrupulous megabucks corporations stepping on my hosting comany.
Something extremely amusing happened last night, following an enjoyable night out with friends from uni, Mr Z, Sibling Z and Sibling Z's friend, during which I remained sober (thankfully, following my 13-gins-fuelled Friday night last weekend). Sibling Z bought one of those gel halo glowy things, since Bath music festival opened last night and they were all over the place. He put it on my head and I forgot about it. Later, when I met the Zs and their friend after my friends had gone home, some drunken woman approached us and nearly threw herself at our feet, begging us to swap the halo for a plastic dummy lit up with red, blue and orange LEDs, on a string. It was more than a fair swap on our part and eventually Sibling Z consented. He didn't think much of it, and there were the predictable jokes about third nipples and such when he hung it round his neck, after which it was all but forgotten.
Until, that is, we were driving home along the Kelston Road. This road is windy and hilly and doesn't have any street lights for most of it. There was a car ahead of us which had been behaving somewhat erratically - taking asges to pull away from the traffic lights, weaving a bit, going very slowly &c. I would have said he was over the limit; Bath was heaving last night and the circus is in town so there were plenty of drunken revellers about; at over twenty quid a taxi I couldn't swear that the thought of driving home wouldn't cross my mind if I'd only had a few. Anyway, Sibling Z pulled out the dummy and switched the lights on and I nearly choked, since I thought it was a police car behind me (having been stopped on that road before just for driving down it at 1am, you can never be too careful). Mr Z soon got his hands on it and started waving it about, putting it up to the windscreen and finally settling for opening the window and holding it on the roof. The blue rather cancelled out the orange and, we all agreed later, from a distance it did look like a police car light - well, a bit. The car in front slowed down even more. "I would laugh my cock off if he pulled over," said Sibling Z, "go on, go right up behind him! Go on!" I declined. Unfortunately, I was so busy trying to get Mr Z to pull his hand in that I didn't realise how much the guy had slowed down until I was right behind him and Mr Z was flashing my headlights at the poor bastard.
He did what any God-fearing citizen would have done. He pulled over.
The boys (and let's face it, pulling a stunt like that does prove that all men are boys at some point) were absolutely hysterical. I couldn't pass him because of the car coming the other way, and instantly adopted my teacher voice, ordering Mr Z to "get out of this car and go and apologise to that man RIGHT NOW!" which had about as much of an effect as a bag of prunes does on a case of Delhi belly - cue more laughter. Eventually I just pulled past and really put my foot down, hoping that the chap had had one too many and didn't call the police to report our impersonations or take down the car number plate. He must have been doing something illegal - what sort of policeman drives a B reg Nova, colour rust, with two passengers?
Even I couldn't keep myself from laughing, though. Illegal or not, it was highly amusing, and demonstrated a particularly good use for novelty flashing paraphernalia.