Sorry - I forgot to say that I had to go to London to welcome back daughter and sort out son for crucial interview. Also I have to go again in two days for a week but then Life will be my own. Writing was going badly anyway as I was boring and annoying myself let alone others.

It is midnight or so and I have just got off late train in snow and found cat ill so things are not ideal. My son managed to have some flu-like virus this week after being totally well for about a year, so he had to miss his university interview. This was not good as they are very, very popular and are used to pathetic grovelling from all prospective students. Probably no one has missed an interview ever before. We DID do horrific grovelling by e-mail and they reluctantly offered another on Monday as a HUGE favour. So I am going straight back to supervise last-minute revision of lies.

Daughter arrived exactly on time and as I watched her walk up the stairs it was as if I had last seen her a couple of hours ago and was no big deal at all. Odd. The family is much better with all three here. It completes some circle of nagging and fighting and evens it out.

I just saw a picture in a magazine of the daughter of an old friend. The daughter is the same age as my older one and they used to play together when tiny. The headline says, 'The stars' favourite clairvoyant', then 'I first realised that I had some strange 'gift' when I was a child and realised that not everyone could see dead people as I could'. This is all a maddening and total lie but I am too tired now and will discuss it tomorrow.
- posted by Iris @ 2/28/2004 12:27:00 AM (0) comments comment

 
For some reason I have started writing soon after I get up, partly as I have to look at my e-mails first thing in case my daughter in India has written anything crucial. She is now back in four days and I forsee a stream of sagas about to ensue. My two daughters have totally opposing visual tastes and as they have to share a flat this is not ideal. Influenced by a long-term Italian boyfriend my middle daughter has evolved a liking for a spare, minimalist look using a lot of cream and earth tones and with NO CLUTTER. While the older one leans towards the hippie, with ethnic drapery. strings of fairy lights, walls crammed with pictures and photographs and every surface covered in quirky or 'amusing' things. Before she met the boyfriend the middle one was also happy with this and my son loves it. I have to say it is more my style as well.

In the months since the older one has been away their sitting room has been slowly cleansed and cleared until last week the middle one finally removed all the coloured cushions from the sofas and achieved her goal. An upmarket hotel room. My son appeared downstairs in despair, 'What is it with her? Where does she come from? Every single thing I liked about that room is gone and now it looks more middle-aged than it does down here. I said where are all the photographs off the walls and she said why didn't I pick out a COUPLE and she would get them FRAMED'. He slumped into a chair; the bourgeois thought of actually framing photographs was the last straw. I promised that I would 'speak' to her.

Her eyes filled with tears. 'Do you have any idea what I have to put up with? The others are both complete slobs. They couldn't give a f@ck if the rubbish is never emptied and leave full ashtrays everywhere and shoes all over the floor and don't hoover and I am ashamed for my friends to come round. Just for one moment I wanted things to be how I like. She'll be back next week with her bags full of crap which will rot in the passage for months and hanging stupid sequined drapes in here and putting THINGS all over the surfaces....' She broke down.

It makes me cry too. They are both going to leave soon, I know it. It is amazing that I have kept them with me so long. On their part it is a mixture of laziness, not having to pay central London rent and that one of them is usually away. On mine, a cunning mixture of extreme niceness and a whiff of emotional blackmail. Their flat is quite separate from ours with its own front door but has an internal staircase joining the two, so it is a bit like being in one house. Which is how I like it. I can't imagine having to make a special journey to have a chat with one of my children. Or actually I can and I so don't want to.

God...I thought writing in the mornings meant that I was appearing unusually upbeat as opposed to midnight ramblings fuelled by whisky. I was reading the 'weN rekroY Book of yraretiL snootraC' which I find very funny. One of them was of 'Dr. llykeJ and Mr. eeffoC' , perhaps that has become my problem.

- posted by Iris @ 2/22/2004 10:30:00 AM comment

 
I am writing quickly and boringly about TV. The friend, L... , who is taking part in the reality show which is now called 'ycnegeR esuoH ytraP' has become nationally famous after only one episode. How bizarre is that? There have been huge newspaper articles about her and trailers for the next week with her on them. All because everyone else, especially the young girls, are totally dull. I thought that her unsuitable romance with one of the younger men was carried on off camera but it is in fact the main story line of the whole programme. At one point, according to a newspaper, she tells him that their love can never be; rips an antique ring from her finger and begs him to 'give it to the girl who will bear your children' and then rides off (side-saddle - she is a brilliant rider) into the sunset, sobbing. What chance does a nineteen-year-old hussy have against someone like that?

Less interesting, but not to me. I insanely tempted fate recently by saying that my favourite 'The terceS efiL of sU' was spoilt by changing the actors but they would never get rid of the lovely aidualC navraK as she was THE MAIN CHARACTER. Last night - they did. I hate, hate , hate them.
- posted by Iris @ 2/21/2004 04:04:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
No wonder everyone here is so obsessed with the weather. Each morning has no relevance to the one before and you could be opening your curtains on a succession of different countries. The day before yesterday had brilliant sunshine and I was wandering around without a coat musing on global warming and the spooky range of flowers that were out. For the first time ever I saw snowdrops, primroses, daffodils and wallflowers all blooming together. In February there should only be snowdrops AND NOTHING ELSE, (of course there are other things but I am talking about 'common' flowers here). At EASTER I often worry that the primroses and daffodils will still be in bud and the garden will not look 'pretty' for the children's holiday. And wallflowers normally appear in late April. Today - I rose chillily and looked out on a landscape covered in SNOW. WTF?

Can you imagine never being able to plan ahead? To always have a 'back up' indoor arrangement for any outdoor event. To have no idea even on the morning of this event whether it might suddenly pour with rain later even though bright and sunny now. To have to look at teletext weather every morning to know which coat or raincoat or no coat to take with you as looking out of the window is meaningless. Is it surprising the English have stiff upper lips? They learn from that very first ruined birthday garden party that life is full of minor disappointments. 'Oh well - ha, ha. Let's move the food into the sitting room and have a picnic on the rug. It will be fun'.
- posted by Iris @ 2/21/2004 09:05:00 AM (0) comments comment

 
England is really so very small that, particularly, once you have become part of private school and university world you tend to have a tenuous connection with almost anyone well-known who is ever mentioned. Even if you just regularly pass them in the street or occasionally see them in a bar. When very, very bored I sometimes check the Births, Marriages and Deaths page of the 'semiT', which also includes Birthdays and/or Obituaries of the Famous and bet myself that I am going to either know, or have seen in the flesh, someone described there. Nine times out of ten I do. The sad thing, I find, is that the minute you have seen or, worse, talked to an actor or musician you (or I) can never really take them seriously again. I have NEVER met anyone famous who had any kind of 'magic' in true life.

This came up as I was reading Badger's account of the J.... B..... film and her plans for D... R.... to be her love slave. I used to come across D. R.. quite often under very un-love slavey conditions. Our daughters were in the same class at Prep. School and were friends. This was long past the J.B. period but she was still majorly well-known and the behaviour of other mothers at the school was quite bizarre. They behaved like slavering courtiers and you felt that they would have been thrilled to curtsey as she passed. Under the circumstances I used to avoid her in person but spoke on the phone to arrange children's tea parties etc. She always had a very annoying smug smile but I suppose that was fair enough as she was queen of the school. The Headmistress had once been an actress herself and sycophantically encouraged actors to send their children there even when the school was theoretically full. She was obviously desperate for their children to enjoy themselves and it became a running joke amongst the (not jealous) non-thespian mothers like me that on Speech Day no actor's child would go home without a prize. This joke reached a high point with D...R... The Day was coming to an end with many cups handed out when the Headmistress rose to her feet. 'This year we have decided to present a special award for the first time. The cup for 'Contributing to School Life in General By Being a Really Nice Person' goes to .... Little Miss R... '. Muted clapping and sniggering filled the hall while D.. R.. acted out delighted surprise and modest pride. Or perhaps it was real.
- posted by Iris @ 2/20/2004 01:42:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Ha - Synchronicity! I just did the 'Which Book Are You?' test on 'Spanglemonkey' and ............ I am 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'.
- posted by Iris @ 2/20/2004 12:46:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
I am here. Life has moved on as if the holiday had never been or was last year. I am very grateful to have four readers but also wondered how Jo, in contrast, could have 6,000 people visiting. Perhaps I should broaden the subject matter of my posts.

Austria was like an strange version of Narnia where it is always Winter but also, oddly, ALWAYS Christmas. There were still Christmas decorations up everywhere, including large Father Christmases (?), fairy lights, reindeer and snowmen. There was already about four feet of snow and then it snowed more almost every day so you were walking around romantically amongst light, drifting flakes. The centre of the town was traffic-free apart from the local 'taxis' which were horse drawn sledges covered in little bells. Large numbers of people were dressed in green felt and jaunty hats with feathers were totally de rigeur as were leiderhosen, (even worn by a six month old baby). Sadly the area was goat-free and old memories of 'Heidi' recalled that they are not good with four feet of snow and spend the winter hanging about in the basements of chalets letting their 'warmth' drift to the floors above.

We were in a vast but central and authentic hotel which had four large restaurants, a disco and a rooftop outdoor whirlpool thing (not used by us). Luckily as residents we ate each evening in the only dining room without the fun accompaniment of Rudi, Franz or Heinz, (truly), singing German songs at the keyboards. The Austrians are very charming and the whole place had a slightly old fashioned look with the chambermaids (mostly in their 60's) wearing national-costume puff sleeves and lace aprons unselfconciously. Sometimes in the evenings as we wandered down endless corridors passing laughing groups of Germans on their way to dinner we felt like English prisoners trying to pass as civilians in some 1940's drama. Every evening there was a five course dinner of Austrian specialities, (not the heart and lung casserole, oddly), which did include many dumplings and on the last night, daringly, ostrich. Surely they have not become indigenous - leaping gracefully from peak to peak?

I had lessons on three days and it was not THAT difficult to learn to ski badly. Then a blizzard set in and I would have had to move on to the high lifts so I luckily developed a mild ear infection. My son behaved like an angel and actually got up every morning at 8.00 and staggered off into the storm carrying heavy skis. I think he was secretly pretending that he was on an army training course and we had a tough Austrian teacher called Manfred which enhanced the illusion. By the end he could ski like a normal person, doing swooping parallel turns down scary slopes. Cool.
I was able to wander round the town which had ICE BARS set up in the streets with pretty girls offering all sorts of schnapps set in cups of snow. It was all so attractive and unlike dreary old English winter. I also found a large supermarket and was able to buy stupid stuff for our lunch every day. I never tire of foreign groceries with idiotic names. Which I now can't remember. What they DID have amongst the colas etc. was Swiss sibannaC Refresher, 'For that Fantastic Natural Feeling'. Is this normal? It certainly isn't in England. My son said it smelt 'right' but had no noticable effect, natural or otherwise. Speaking of which - I am ashamed to say that we did not have a single drink of hot chocolate OR gluwhein. They just didn't seem to be about at the right time. The ski instructors huts sold coke or TEA! How crap is that?

On arriving back we found letters from two universities asking my son to come for an interview. We had, as with the girls, specifically and only applied to universities which never, ever choose their students by interview. So leaving my brilliant CV creativity free reign. Which it had. We had no memory of what I had written - my son could not even remember reading it. Horrors. It was worse than I thought. Why, why did I put that he was fascinated by Japanese art and was taking lessons in basic Japanese in preparation for a summer trip? Why did I put that he admired the work of two hellish and quite obscure modern artists who he has in fact never seen? Why did I put that he had worked in a gallery specialising in 18th.C caricatures and so must know at least something of their intricacies? And that he was about to do a short drawing course in Paris combined with work experience with an art dealer? There is more, much more .............. AAAaaaargh!!!!

Well - I put all that so that he would sound interesting and they would offer him a place. The girls were offered places at every single college they applied to. They did their courses successfully and graduated with good degrees. So...... so what I bent the truth?

This is why the holiday has vanished into memory. The interviews are in ONE WEEK. I have made him a strict time table for each day and we are doing damage limitation. He is running from art gallery to exhibition to book shop to internet. And Japanese phrase- book. For f@cks sake - how does Life ALWAYS manage to do what you don't expect - its like it has a gift.
- posted by Iris @ 2/19/2004 08:23:00 PM comment

 
I will now be away for about two weeks.
- posted by Iris @ 2/05/2004 12:52:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
My mind, for some reason, is already moving on to the fact that not long after we get back the two younger children are going away again - to Thailand. Home of avian flu. My daughter found a flight and accommodation so cheap (huts on the beach for about £1.00 a week) that she kept drunkenly inviting random acquaintances until some vast crowd is setting off. She has been there before and it casts some kind of spell as I can list many people who have never come back. Including a friend's brother who went out for a holiday twenty years ago and then bought a run-down hotel on an island and is still there. Occasionally hosting one of the main Asian drum and ssab festivals. The children will be with him part of the time, which seems reassuring but I think his brain is mostly elsewhere.

When I was young I happened to be the oldest child amongst my parents' group of friends, so everything I did was a first and not always acceptable. As a teenager I left home fairly early and threw myself into hippieness, mind expansion etc. The nearest children in age to me of that parental group, two brothers, meanwhile, followed a sensible path and began the long training to become accountants. They always spent Christmas with us and although I cleaned myself up and behaved politely for the occasion they could obviously sense that I thought they were huge bores. I am not particularly spiteful, (I swear), but not long after one of these holidays my commune-like flat was giving a massive party and on a whim I sent a formal invitation to the older brother. Reclining on a mattress listening to some low insistent beat and wearing flowing rainbow garments, as was everyone else, I glanced up to see the brother hovering in the doorway. As a rising accountant he had chosen to dress for success in a natty pin-stripe suit and silk tie.

I have to say that we were quite a stylish and cutting edge commune and the party was full of pretty people and looked rather glamorous. He advanced towards me with mad eyes and said 'How could you?'. I laughed meanly, 'I thought you should see how other people live and anyway, I hardly expected you to wear a SUIT'. (I am saying here that I had put up with some years of 'Oh why can't you be more like.. ' about these boys). He looked sad and beaten, 'I always thought you liked me'. Oh f@ck. 'Don't be silly. I'm really sorry of course I like you', (not totally true), 'I wanted you to see another world because yours seems so dull'. 'Oh - whatever'. He quietly left the building.

Not six months later I was chatting with my mother on the phone and asked after them. 'OMG', she said, 'I can't believe you don't know'. 'Both the boys suddenly gave up their accountancy courses and went to Bali on an extended holiday. Their mother is frantic as she has just heard that the younger one has got engaged to a Balinese girl and they have said that they are never coming back'. And they didn't.

The younger one married a local village chieftan's daughter in an exotic ceremony where she arrived at the wedding on an elephant. The older one married an Australian backpacker. After a couple of years they moved all together to The Great Barrier Reef, where they opened a bar catering for deep sea divers. AND THEY ARE STILL THERE.

I don't feel guilty. How could I possibly have guessed? All I had wanted was for him to loosen up and maybe occasionally leave the house without wearing a suit. In the typical way of 'things' I ended up marrying a conventional, hard working businessman and ,lately, leading exactly the kind of life of which my parents would be proud.
- posted by Iris @ 2/05/2004 12:19:00 PM comment

 
I am panicking about going to Austria now in a mad undirected way. I have a whole day in London on Friday but I keep thinking of crucial things and then hysterically forgetting what they were instantly but knowing dimly that there had been something....... I am afraid of getting to the airport, Gatwick, miles away, so late that I can't sit with my son on the plane and having to eat the 'hot meal' squidged between two strangers. I also thought that although not 'fat' I am then again not unbelievably thin and would look like a fool on the slopes. My daughter pointed out, 'You are going to AUSTRIA where they are pretty much German - the fattest people in Europe'. True.

I can't speak German at all which is very relaxing as I will have to make nil effort. I have, however, learnt one word which I am burning into my brain. It is 'Beuschel'. This is to ensure that under no circumstances do I order it in a restaurant by accident. Under 'Specialities of the Tyrol' is mentioned 'Beuschel - a lung and heart ragout'. Unfortunately we are a hundred years too late for the 'Tyrolean eagle with dumplings' which was once a standard. You would have thought that the amount of meat on an eagle would not have been worth the perilous climb to the eyrie. All food seems to come with dumplings so it is lucky that I have abandoned Dr. A.......s.
- posted by Iris @ 2/04/2004 11:29:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
I was inspired by something Badger wrote, as usual, though also as usual not by one of her many intellectual posts. This is for me to look back at and may alienate stray readers.

I don't like to listen to music when I am reading but only when I am doing something practical or as a background to chatting. I particularly like music when I am cooking and also tend to have obsessive sessions of one tune on repeat. So I thought I would list the ones that have been on repeat the most over the past two months. (This is FOR ME and has no interest of any kind).

Writing these backwards will be quite testing.

1. einnA I'm Not Your yddaD. diK eloerC. One of my all time favourites.

2. La ettoN anretE. ammE nilpahS. From the Buddha raB V. CD.

3. teG A boJ. The gnirpsffO.

4. oS ysaE. pposkyoR.

5. edirB 1945. luaP lebieS.

6. You niW niagA. The eeB seeG. (Renowned for impenetrable lyrics but after hours ofrepeats
I may be the only person in the world who understands).

7. Aa rayaT ajoH. ihdinuS nahuahC. From the 'akosA' soundtrack. (I loved that film. You
need to have seen the dancing to appreciate this song).

My most repeated ever tune is a French pop song which I played on my birthday once for five hours. My husband passed through the room about three hours into it saying 'I recognise this. Has that track been on earlier?' ( ataP ataP by abmuoC olwaG). Also an all time repeater is the noitingI Remix but I am not allowed to admit this apparently as 'Not only is he a crappy, sad person but his music is shit'. Right, I won't mention it then.

I have many other favourites - quite cool and not cool at all - but oddly with most of them one hearing at a time is enough. These were only recent repeat ones, for some reason I can't really remember further back. Perhaps my brain got so numbed by them that they have been erased.
- posted by Iris @ 2/04/2004 07:59:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Strange - months ago a close friend of mine, divorced, lonely , life has no particular purpose etc.... asked me to have lunch with her as she was going to an important interview and needed bracing beforehand. The interview was for a reality TV show called 'The ycnegeR yrtnuoC House' where a group of people had to live in a huge R..C.. House for two months in exact R..ency mode. The theme would be that it was a sort of marriage market and would comprise various young girls and suitable young men, several older women chaperones and oddments like vicars, aunts etc. plus an extensive staff. As the family were supposedly rich the lifestyle would be very comfortable indeed.

She, the friend, who I will call T..., was absolutely desperate to go as she was certain that her life would be totally transformed by the experience and, once her many talents had been revealed to the nation, she would be offered all sorts of jobs, possibly her own chat show and would be buried under proposals of marriage. (She didn't say all this but I know her well). She IS very attractive and DOES have many talents - life has been a little unfair to her. Psyched up and dressed with a perfect blend of tweed and tartiness, (to show that she understood country house ways but was also quite 'racy' for audience appeal), she skipped to the interview. After weeks of hanging about and re-interviewing it was down to her and one other. And they gave it to the other. They said that they had to have contrasting types so they chose someone much older. When she had actually secretly thought she was going to get it she said that her whole future happiness depended on this and if it didn't work out 'she didn't know what she would do'.

Last week the cover of the TV guide had a huge photograph of Re..cy women and 'full story of forthcoming new series inside'. I turned to it out of vague interest to see who they had chosen over T.. and there, in an unbecoming hat, was my older daughter's godmother, L.... She lives far away in the 'North' and we hardly ever meet now but she had unusually sent me a Christmas card so I had thought that perhaps she was lonely. When I rang another mutual friend to say 'OMG, how come L.... is doing this?' she said that as L... was divorced, lonely and her life had no particular purpose, she thought it would be a chance to show her talents to the nation and she was expecting jobs, chat shows, marriage proposals etc. ' And', here the friend lowered her voice, 'she had said that if she didn't get it, she didn't know what she would do'.

For f@cks sake. How could two women with massive charm, looks, wit and brains both have no real ambitions or hope for the future beyond prancing about in a rather silly and rather dull TV programme? If it DOES totally change L..'s life then I will obviously admit that I am wrong, but really. The mutual friend said she thought that L... just had a burning, undirected longing to be famous. I think that T... probably does too. They both have a certain ruthless quality which I, personally, like in a woman but does seem to often lead to divorce and general nastiness. In L..'s case she slightly junked her role as a chaperone, apparently, and embarked on a wild affair with one of the 'suitors' who was half her age. For her sake I hope that the series is a big success but for T..'s sake, of course, I rather hope that it isn't. It will be interesting to see which of them is leading the happier life in about a year's time.
- posted by Iris @ 2/04/2004 01:25:00 AM comment

 
I now own lots of waterproof clothes. My son was being so vague and not getting up etc. that I went with my daughter, an accomplished skier, and we just bought his entire outfit in size M. Choosing a low key but cutting edge design. When we brought it home he liked everything, tried it on and it fitted perfectly and then he wandered away again. So I packed it into a bag and he is now ready down to the last detail of lip salve. Life is so simple when you are young and thin.

It is always exciting dressing up for something that has any kind of uniform. I really don't need to actually go away at all now. I have the clothes and I've seen the video. The holiday can only be an anti-climax.

I managed to miss a mini-hurricane yesterday which blew down our largest 100 year old beech tree, once framed in my bedroom window and the haunt of owls. My husband, who was still here, was practically crying but I feel so much better 'in myself' since the outpourings of moaning last week that I was nauseatingly positive. I pointed out that we could use the wood to make a large dining table, which we don't have, and it could be the first of many bits of furniture made from our own trees and would be the start of a whole new hobby for him designing them. (And then we could tactfully move his parents things out to the barn after all).

The train journey to London produced a new excuse for lateness for my collection. The train slowed down randomly and after a bit a voice came over the 'tannoy', or maybe PA system, 'This is Jeff your train manager and I'm afraid we've rather a problem with cows on the line. We can't get hold of the farmer so we will be proceeding with caution while someone tries to catch them'. This is not some single track branch line. This is the main London-South West inter-city, high-speed top of the range whatever. No wonder people are calling us a third world country. Speaking of which, my daughter will be back from India in three weeks. She sent an e-mail saying she felt it was probably time as she had just seen a man sitting typing at a desk by the roadside in the middle of nowhere and then a flock of goats wearing pink cardigans and had thought nothing of it. Interestingly she said that our worries about her returning as some placid Buddhist were totally unfounded as everyone was so pushy and tough there that they had been forced to sharpen up. 'I HAVE found myself', she said, 'but the person that I have found takes no crap'.

As I once predicted, my son has just been offerred an unconditional place at the one university he definitely didn't want to go to. Perhaps he could abandon all idea of academia and become a champion skier.
- posted by Iris @ 2/03/2004 01:10:00 AM (0) comments comment