Christmas with Herdy: 2020

We can all talk about how weird this year has been, how different our ‘summer holidays’ have been and how different Christmas would be. My Christmas was certainly different. I had two choices (a) be miserable or (b) embrace it, to be a memory for many years to come. I chose the latter. As Herdy has done, I’ve decorated the trees, put out the decorations, wrapped the presents and posted them.

The final question was ‘What to do on Christmas Day?’. All the other options like the Christmas Buffet, visiting my cousins and Aunty Joyce in Hertfordshire, having Gwyneth to stay overnight on her way to her daughters, playing Mah Jongg with Gwyn and Pete, a trip to Aberdeen to see Jean were gone and could never be repeated. Time to set some new traditions.

We invited Pete to join us on Christmas Day for a walk to Wollaton Park, a Christmas picnic on one of their benches and back for a film and Christmas Pudding. It was a beautiful day, bright, sunny and cold. No wind to increase the ‘wind chill’ factor. We weren’t necessarily the most attractive sight, each with so many layers of clothes. We loaded the Tramper with food, hot water for the tea and plenty of sanitiser. It was strange seeing so many people out walking, a sign of the times. There were children trying out their new bikes, many of them envious of the Tramper. “So cool” said one. On we walked, until we found a picnic bench, isolated, near no one.

We started with sanitising the table and benches. The table was then covered with the tablecloth that had belonged to Jean; she was with us in spirit. The Christmas napkins laid neatly on the table which we worked out were at least five years old but probably much older. When I was at work I used to take sandwiches with me for lunch. Rather than wrapping them in kitchen towel, during December and up to 12th Night, I would wrap them in a Christmas napkin. I must have bought thousands because I still have 25 left, and I have been using them throughout December for the last five years. The mini-crackers looked cute. They aren’t meant as proper crackers but rather as a table decoration. These are at least 15 years old, never been used until Christmas Day 2020; that’ll be something to remember!

We made hot Moroccan Mint tea, (saves having to put milk in a flask) in melamine mugs. It was delicious and refreshing. The chicken/pigs in blankets/ stuffing ball sandwich was divine. We saw no one else on a Christmas Day picnic but there was many a envious eye cast across to our table. We needn’t have brought the flask because there was a brave ‘takeaway’ drinks van which we could have used. They did good business that day, very enterprising!

As we sat at the table, in the sunshine, we pulled the crackers. Too small for gifts and hats but there was a small sheet of paper (need good eyesight to read it) with a ‘conversation starter’, a joke and a factoid. Pete began with his ‘conversation starter’. We sat there completely stunned: “what was the highlight of the last 12 months?” The cracker may have been 15 years old but they certainly got the question right, and we did discuss it, at length. None of thought the Coronavirus Update from Downing Street fell into this category. For Liz, it was having a Tramper, for me it was discovering Tapton Lock and the Nottingham Canal, Pete is still thinking about it. It was followed by “which country would you most like to visit?”. We laughed, “Any” we jointly answered but after more consideration Liz chose “Scotland”, Pete “Wales” and I “Italy”. The final ‘conversation starter’ was “Are you better at remembering people’s faces or names?”. The consensus was that by the time we were able to meet up with people, we probably wouldn’t remember either.

The jokes were as awful as any Christmas Cracker; the factoids interesting and we each knew the answer to one. These were brilliant crackers, made for this day, and there’s is still another three to go for next year.

We left Wollaton Park as it began to get really cold, home in time for a cup of tea and a piece of Christmas cake. We played Qwirkle, a Christmas present, which was absolutely brilliant, to which all three of us have become addicted.

So it was possible to have a really enjoyable day, break old traditions and feel, for a few short hours, that all was right with the world. At least there wasn’t a Coronavirus Update from Downing Street.

Beamish: Acquired 2015

Dear Jean,

I just wanted to thank you for letting me have, back in 2015, all your tea towels. I know that when you moved into a nursing home you realised that you didn’t need a tea towel, but I will ever be grateful that they came my way. I have enjoyed, over the last five years, being able to listen to your stories about the tea towels because, as we say in the trade, ‘every tea towel tells a story’.

I know most of your tea towels are aged, that you kept them even when others might have discarded them, and you used them all. I know you never ironed them, however, because when I emptied your kitchen drawers they were all crumpled up. If you had ironed them you would have fitted a lot more in. Although well used, your tea towels were not stained. You explained to me how this came about. Myra, your sister, didn’t like those faint brown marks caused by actual tea, so she soaked the tea towels in diluted bleach. Clearly, it worked but it also meant that a lot of the patterns disappeared as well. Those that were not bleached were boiled, after use, in an old saucepan on the cooker. Not a wonder they were all faded. I think this one from Beamish probably survived the best (and even that isn’t looking too perky).

One time, I brought your tea towel from Ferryhill Church with me when I visited you. You told me that it was a fundraising tea towel to celebrate the Millennium. All the church goers signed their names; you were able to easily find your own signature, and that of Myra and Betty. You laughed when I asked about the ‘Test It’ tea towel from Aberdeen City Council to remind you how to test your fire alarm “How was I ever going to test my fire alarm? I’m four foot ten and am never going to climb a step ladder”.

You talked a lot about visiting Hitchin to see your brother and the tea towels from there. Woburn Abbey didn’t survive the boiling well. But you loved the Aberdeen Girl Guides one, actually ‘ones’ since you had three. Each of you bought one. You’ll be pleased to know I passed one on to Lyn. I found the photo of the holiday where the tea towel was ‘launched’. You all looked so happy. The Trefoil Guild one brought back many happy memories for you; you obviously used it, and boiled it, a lot, because it has a big hole in it. But I would never get rid of it, and I will use it.

I’ve never been to Beamish and I asked you about it, whether it was good. You said that you couldn’t remember it (it was more than 40 years ago, after all) but if I had kept the ‘Postcard Diary’ there would be something about it there. When I got home, I looked through your postcards (you used to buy a postcard from places you visited and write some comments about the place) and this is what it said “We spent a weekend near Beamish. It rained all day but we had a good time in the Open Air Museum”. What a great idea those postcards were, but it doesn’t help me decide whether it would be a good place to visit.

I do have a confession to make. There were some tea towels that were so bleached and boiled that I decided to re-purpose them. I soaked them in tea overnight (Myra would not have liked that), dried them, cut them into two inch wide strips and used them to make puppet dogs for the Nottingham Puppet Festival in 2018. They contributed to making a wonderful Afghan Hound and its puppy. Liz and I paraded them around the centre of Nottingham. Jai, Roger, Hamish and Lyra came to watch. Those puppets are held in the Theatre Royal Nottingham’s archives and have been used more than once since that event. I hope you don’t mind. I can reassure you that I still have about 35 of your tea towels and all the others were photographed for the Virtual Tea Towel Museum before they transmuted into an Afghan Hound. I hope you like the photo

One of the things that I loved about our visits to Aberdeen was your ability to understand the way your iPad worked and to engage in conversations online with David, your brother, with Lyn and Liz and even Sarah and Jai and their children. It was one of those things that you enjoyed, a way of keeping in touch with family after you knew that a visit to England would not be possible. You also enjoyed that holiday we had, staying in a cottage at Girdleness Lighthouse, when Hamish your great great nephew, came too.

Jean, you brought such joy to the lives of so many, in the Guides, in Trefoil Guild, in the Bowling Club; to your friends and family, to the staff and residents, where you lived for five years.

Thank you for welcoming me into your family. I loved you dearly.

Jean died on 17 December 2020, at home, peacefully, and not of Coronavirus.

Mr Gee’s Family: 2020

“Painting is my passion. Colour is my vision. My work is full of optimism and positive energy and my hope is that my work and energy is transferred to your life and environment” (Donna Sharam).

(I wasn’t sure when I was going to Blog about this tea towel, but after yesterday’s Downing Street announcement I thought I would do this one because it is so joyous; and what we all need is a bit of joy. Isabella, the cat, wanted to be part of the Blog as well)

“Have you been talking to the Tea Towel Fairy again?” I ask my cousin Amanda, via WhatsApp

“Don’t think so. Which one have you got now?” she replies.

“Cute giraffes from Love Hearts Collection” I say, hoping it will jog her memory.

“That’s not me this time. Oooo exciting” Somehow, I don’t believe her, which isn’t very charitable of me.

I send her a photograph of it with the message “Are you absolutely sure you didn’t send this one?” I ask.

“That’s really unusual but I cannot take credit” she says. Now I am starting to believe her.

“I seriously, seriously have no idea who sent it. I’m going to be pondering all night…..”

Helpfully, she says “Hopefully someone will step forward…”

That was about six days ago, after the frisson of excitement when the flat package sipped through the letterbox. It is so distinctive. There is a ‘certain’ sound that a packaged tea towel makes, as it drops to the floor, and lies there looking tempting. And I share my excitement with anyone who is around at the time, by laughing, jumping up and down and issuing a lot of “ooooooos”.

The next day, Pete came round. Liz, Pete and I had a long, and intense, conversation about who the sender might be, dismissing many candidates for a variety of reasons. As we go round in circles, we return to the fact that none of us has ever seen a tea towel like this, in anyone’s house, or even in a shop. But I know, because I have done my research, that the artist, Donna Sharam, has many different designs with the same colourful note. I still think that Amanda is the most likely candidate, and she still denies it.

‘Mr Gee’s Family’ comes in a cardboard cover, with all the information that I need: artist Donna Sharam, it is 100% cotton with advice not to dry clean it, nor bleach it. Who on earth dry cleans a tea towel‽. However, my friend Jean told me tales of how her sister used to boil, and bleach, tea towels which accounts for why many of tea towels Jean gave to me have virtually no pattern left on them. It’s a good job none of the sisters got hold of this tea towel.

A few days later, I got an email “I just wanted to check that you received my Christmas present and identified who it was from OK?…..I hope you do not already have it. I liked the vibrant colours and the fun design”. I was wrong, apologies to Amanda, it wasn’t from Amanda; it was from Steve. He wasn’t even on the ‘List of Suspects’ that Liz, Pete and I discussed. Oh!! Brilliant!!. I have the answer to my question. I know who it came from from. Steve is obviously a good judge of a tea towel, that is good for the mood of the country. I love it and so does Isabella. I am not moving it from the back of the settee until way after Christmas. Everyone should own such a wonderful, vibrant, joyful, colourful, imaginative, quirky, whacky tea towel which could bring happiness into your home and your kitchen, even if no one else is going to see it this year.

Thank you Steve. A great choice.

Lancashire (Oswaldtwistle): Acquired 2020

Brian let me have his mother’s Collection of tea towels. She had collected tea towels, they were very special to her and he didn’t want to split the Collection up, if at all possible. He did his research on Google, finding the Virtual Tea Towel Museum. I’d never met Brian but was delighted to receive all his mother’s tea towels. Mostly, they were unused, pristine, creases embedded in them. It was so exciting when they arrived through the post. I had a quick ‘rummage’ before carrying out a more detailed inspection. I found one of Lancashire. Now, this was exciting because (a) I hadn’t got one of Lancashire and, in fact, had virtually none of any places in Lancashire and (b) I was sure that Oswaldtwistle would be on it, if only because of it’s very strange name. I looked very carefully at the map. Oswaldtwistle (pronounced ‘ozzel twizzel’) is, of course, in Lancashire, not far from Accrington. The odd thing was that someone had written, in felt tip pen, ‘Ormskirk’, as if they were disappointed that Ormskirk never made it on to the map. Neither did Oswaldtwistle. I asked Brian about any special significance that Ormskirk had to his mother, but he didn’t know of any.

On my mother’s side of the family, going back through her father’s family, they all came from Oswaldtwistle. The churchyard of Immanuel Church is full of ‘Wards’, going back generations. Even my grandmother, whose family lived in Millom, was buried there. As I sit at my desk, writing this Blog, on the wall above me, is a picture of Immanuel Church, a large church in Oswaldtwistle. It is a pen and ink drawing by Samuel Ward (Great Uncle Samuel), signed and dated 1928. I know of no family members living in Oswaldtwistle today, although I am sure there are second, or even third, cousins twice removed scattered across Oswaldtwistle. Nevertheless, Oswaldtwistle feels as though my roots are there.

As a child, I had visited Oswaldtwistle on many occasions, having tea from fine bone china cups in the sitting room of Great Aunt Florence (wife of Samuel). She terrified me. I always refused a biscuit or cake for fear of dropping a crumb on the floor. Great Aunt Dora was very different, much more accommodating to children. She had never married but had cared for her brothers, and there were many, until they left home and found a wife to carry out those chores. Dora had the broadest of Lancastrian accents and wasn’t much of a cook. I loved visiting Great Uncle Tom and his wife. She was a great cook and my mother enjoyed staying with them so she could meet up with her cousin, Elizabeth. When Tom’s wife died, he moved to live with his daughter in Aberdeen but his ashes came home to Oswaldtwistle.

I had always wanted a tea towel from Oswaldtwistle. In 2002, I visited Oswaldtwistle, hunting that elusive tea towel. I tried gift shops, post offices, small supermarkets but to no avail. I even tried the Oswaldtwistle Mill Shop, a shopping mall and Heritage Centre. Nothing. It has irked me. I have so many fleeting memories of Oswaldtwistle that I wanted to be able to capture them on a Blog. Not only that, Oswaldtwistle has a ‘heritage’, some famous ‘sons’. James Hargreaves was the inventor of the ‘Spinning Jenny’, which made a significant contribution to the cotton industry during the Industrial Revolution. He came from Oswaldtwistle. Robert Peel made big developments in calico printing and his grandson was a Prime Minister. Oswaldtwistle was the location for the Power Loom Riots in the 1826, starting because the mechanisation of the cotton mills meant hardship, financial suffering, unemployment for the traditional hand loom weavers.

Inspired by the fact that ‘ozzel twizzel’ doesn’t feature on this Lancashire map, I started my research once again, this time online. Are there any big shops there that might sell them? Any gift shops? Does Amazon have any? These days, is there a Museum? My first port of call was Oswaldtwistle Mills. They apparently used to produce one, actually two, but they no longer do. They said they had a copy of the two in their archives. With blazon cheek, I asked if they could send me a photograph of them. The following day the picture below came with an apology that they could only find one. It’s a great tea towel and should obviously be on sale, especially with it’s reference to the diminutive of it’s name.

So thank you to Brian for the tea towel of Lancashire and to Oswaldtwistle Mills for the picture of the last surviving tea towel. Maybe one day I’ll go back and see if there has been a new print run of ‘Oswaldtwistle’, the tea towel.

Plymouth College of Art: 2015

While sorting out the Virtual Tea Towel Museum, I realise that I hadn’t blogged about these two.. In June 2015, I was staying in Devon on holiday in the caravan. I saw that the Devon Guild of Craftsmen were holding their annual show at Bovey Tracey. We decided to go. Personally, I thought it was very brave of Liz to let me loose amongst all those crafts people, many producing, and creating, highly individual, unique pieces of work in the shape of a tea towel. It was a good job there was a lot of space in the caravan because I bought quite a few.

In the centre of the site was a tent, reminiscent of a very large Tee-Pee, devoted to the Plymouth College of Art. They had designed a tea towel, specifically for this event. To buy a tea towel, you needed to buy a pack of two, in two different colours, pink and black. I’m not sure that I wanted two but I definitely wanted one. I had to suffer in silence.

That day at Bovey Tracey was one I would always remember. I met some amazing artists, saw some beautiful ceramics, bought some earrings and had a great meal. Thinking about it, it was so good that I would really to go again, once we are over the pandemic. It will happen again, won’t it?

My Dog: Acquired 2018

This Blog is dedicated to Liz K, a friend of mine and a follower of this Blog. She has always said that she has learnt more about my life, from the Blog, than ever she has done in real conversations.

On 25 November 2020, I wrote a Blog about ‘The Horse’s Prayer’. It is a strange tea towel and I had wondered where the ‘prayer’ had come from. I did a lot of research to no avail. Liz K sent a comment “Apart from anything else, it’s a terrible poem”. I do have to agree, but didn’t want to admit it, and I still wonder what inspires someone to put a poem like that on a tea towel.

Rummaging through other tea towels I have ‘inherited’, I came across this one. Not only am I not a ‘horse’ person but dogs aren’t really my thing, in that I have never owned one nor ever really wanted to own one. Although, during Lockdown Number 1, having a dog seemed like a good idea, a way to get out of the house. But they are a lot of work, all that pooper-scooper tasks. And in terms of my love of dogs, I would make an exception for Dog, the beautiful dog owned by a Tea Towel Designer and who has been a regular ‘star’ of Twitter and Instagram videos.

Seeing this tea towel, with it’s poem, I would appreciate some literary commentary on it from Liz K.

Guide Dogs for the Blind (2): Acquired 2019

I have had to think hard about using this tea towel. It perfectly sums up today’s story but it has been used before, not by me but by Umaynah, on 19 June 2020, as part of a ‘Home Schooling Challenge’ that I set her. The question I ask myself is ‘Can I use it again in a Blog’? Of course I can, it’s my Blog but that is why it is called ‘Guide Dogs for the Blind (2)’, to distinguish them from each other.

Have you heard of the ‘UK Disability History Month’? Having worked for 41 years with disabled people, I never have. If I had, then I would have done some amazing things at my last job, because mosaic: shaping disability services had a very long history, being founded in 1898. It also had amazing archives. I would have loved to have celebrated Disability History Month, raised awareness….. but too late now, I’ve retired. However, if I hadn’t heard of it, who has? Talk about hiding your light under a bushel. Fact: the UK Disability History Month has run from 22 November to 22 December every year since 2010. Wikipedia describes this an an ‘informal’ event. This year’s theme was ‘Access’.

Northumberland certainly knows about it, and recognises it, because last Thursday there was a Zoom event where Dr Amit Patel was interviewed about his journey into the world of visual impairment, and life with a guide dog. It was a brilliant interview. Here was an engaging man, who could captivate an audience, who can talk ‘the hind legs off a donkey’, without prompts, who is honest about his experiences, his dark days, his funny days, his challenging days and his hopefulness. For me, it was very moving, in a really funny way, and reminded me of my friend Dave Morris who died in 2010. I have written about Dave Morris before, a leading figure in the Disability Movement and an adviser to Ken Livingstone when he was Mayor of London. When I was sorting my house, back in 2017, before moving house, I found the speech that Dave made at our AGM in 1999. Goodness me, the staff thought he was a bit radical and controversial, not what they were expecting. Re-reading it, I realise the world hasn’t really changed over the last 20 years, and the things that Dr Amit Patel talked about, Dave experienced 30 years ago. That is shameful. I have always wanted to use this speech in a Blog and I now have the opportunity. This is what Dave Morris said:

“As last night was Halloween, I thought I would start with some horror stories. My first happened in my university days, just up the M1 in Nottingham. While sitting in some hostelry, one evening, no doubt discussing some finer detail of Hegelian dialectics, somebody came up to me, as they do because if you’re a disabled person in a pub you are public property, and the following exchange took place: “I have a friend like you, he’s a vegetable”.

Now part of me likes ‘collecting’ these times when the interaction between society and disability becomes personalised. As we hurtle with gusto towards the new Millennium, the fact is that the civil rights struggle is still a live issue. It has been said that the disability movement is the last great civil rights struggle. The Disability Discrimination Act, in the same way as the Race Relations Act and the Equal Opportunities Act, has drawn a line in the sand. Our society is telling us that we should have equal civil rights. We should be able to have access to transport, to employment, to education and the Millennium Dome, in the same way as anybody else. As it is against the law to discriminate because of the colour of somebody’s skin or gender, it is now illegal to discriminate, in certain circumstances because of disability. As we all know, however, equality legislation has not disposed of racism or sexism overnight and neither will the Disability Discrimination Act.

And this is where I come back to horror stories. The fact is that still, for many of us, the unacceptable becomes commonplace. Horror stories become part of our everyday experience.

I’d like to classify myself as a pretty average, ordinary type of bloke. I work full-time (and usually extra time) in a responsible job in the voluntary sector. I earn a reasonable (but not extortionate) salary. In the same way that women still only get 60% of the salaries of men, disabled people do not command the highest salaries in the world, however skillled and experienced we are.

I am in a long-term relationship and, yes, I have a sex life. I have a range of interest outside work: cinema, theatre, football, pubs, late night philosophising after pubs. I have a strong innate belief that all of us should be able to develop our potential. The beauty (and it is beautiful) of our society is that its very fabric is about difference. The ugly thing about our society is that many of us do not realise the value of diversity and try to be ‘normal’ allowing prejudice and discrimination to flourish. Although I classify myself as average, as a disabled person I have also experienced the unacceptable reality of prejudice and discrimination:

• As a child being dispatched to a harsh and cruel institution, where wheelchairs were taken away as punishment, where you are forced to go on stupid diets and were sent away for what can only be described as experimental surgery, where the local vicar was allowed to base a sermon on the progressive ecclesiastical thesis that we were disabled because of the sins of our parents, where every day a brass plaque, announced to the world, that this institution was caring for cripples, in the name of Jesus, where other darker unacceptable things happened……..
• At my interview for a university place, when the Head of Department, after apologising for the delay in my interview for a place on an Honours Degree course, gave me a children’s book with the words “look at this whilst you wait, its got lots of pictures”.  It obviously rubbed off because the Teletubbies are my heroes.
• Being prevented from having a job in the Civil Service because it would not look good for a disabled person to work with the general public
• Being asked by a colleague what hospital I lived in, and then overhearing a subsequent conversation with another colleague about how severely disabled I was “but he’s so intelligent”
• Being refused a drink in a pub because “we don’t have any facilities for people like you”
• Being spat at in the street
• Being told on numerous occasions, when I challenge these instances, that I have a chip on my shoulder

As I said earlier, I tend to collect these examples because they illustrate, for me, the road we all move along.  I believe that much has changed over the last few years and the unacceptable is less commonplace.  Our organisations exist to make sure this continues to be the case.  The new language of empowerment, equality and rights is an expression of the fact that we are no longer prepared to accept the unacceptable; that we are moving centre stage; that we can be in control and in charge but also work together”

So thank you, Dr Patel, for a wonderfully entertaining evening.  If it wasn’t a time of Coronavirus I wouldn’t have travelled to Northumberland to see him, too far away, but, with Coronavirus, this event was made more accessible.  Amazing.  However, I have three of my own ‘stories’ about Guide Dogs which I want to share.

My first story was about the interview I had in 1989, for a job as Manager of a brand new organisation, managed by disabled people, campaigning for disabled people.  I’d never been at an interview like this.  One panel member used an induction loop, another had a Guide Dog.  It was going very smoothly, the dog was sleeping on the floor, snoring loudly.  It looked like he was dreaming when he started to move, shuffled around, twisting himself in the wire of the induction loop.  The microphone was pinned to to my jumper.  As the dog moved and twisted, the front of my jumper appeared to be moving forward.  It looked like I was wearing an inflating bra.  I tried to lean forward to compensate, but I also started to giggle.  I didn’t know what to do but thought there must be some kind of political correctness for a situation like this.  But, of course, the owner of the Guide Dog didn’t know what was happening.  In the end, I said “Could we stop for a moment?  The dog has tangled itself in the induction loop and I need to untangle the wires”.  As I did this, I got rid of all my giggles and I got the job.

My second tale is of Meryl’s dog who was renown for a voracious appetite, and sweet tooth.  As we queued to get a coffee, the dog swiftly put its paws on the counter and ate half a chocolate cake.  I’ve never seen a dog move so fast.

And the third occasion was not funny, at least not funny to me.  Jim was a worker with a Guide Dog, who I supervised.  We were chatting in my office when there was a strange noise.  “What’s that noise?” Jim asked.

“Your dog is being sick on my carpet” I replied.

“Oh” he said.  “Where?”

In a firm voice I said “By the door, a huge amount and when we open the door it will have to move over that pile of sick.  Jim, I am telling you, do not move until I tell you”. It was so disgusting.  And there was I on my knees scooping it all up, while Jim laughed because there was nothing else he could do.

2020: A Year from Hell

In my head, I had already planned out what I would write for my 2020 Calendar Tea Towel, which I would ‘post’ on 1 January 2021. It would be the Christmas Newsletter that I send in my Christmas cards to people I don’t normally see but still keep in touch with. I would be safe to do this because none of those people actually read my Blog. It would be so easy to do, save a lot of pondering about what to say because, let’s face it, this has been a ‘weird’ year.

“Best laid plans….” and all that. My cousin Amanda sent me this tea towel; it arrived yesterday. This has to be the best tea towel in the whole wide world and everyone needs one (and if you do want one, look up The Scribbler on Google). This has to be the tea towel to remind you of 2020, no cute animals, no pretty flowers, not even a calendar because, let’s face it, every day has seemed the same. It’s brilliant. Thank you Amanda. So I decided that my Christmas Newsletter would go in this one, if only because of the delicate edging of the toilet rolls. This means I have to rethink the 2020 Calendar Tea Towel, but never mind. The only thing I would say is that you, My Readers, have the tea towel not the stickers!

Happy Christmas All,

Before I start writing about what a strange year 2020 was, I just wanted to thank all those people who took up my invitation to become a Guest Tea Towel 2020 in www.virtualteatowelmuseum.com.  I had so many ‘entries’, all so different, all so interesting which have been read around the world.  There was Helen’s very old, very traditional Madeira tea towel, Mick’s wonderful one from Skegness, Shirley’s Amish one and Alan’s amazing one, which he actually gave to me, of the Minack Theatre in Cornwall.  If you live in Oxfordshire you might have recognised Oxfordshire County Council’s one on recycling food waste.  I can’t tell you how delighted I was to receive each and every one.

Of course, if you still have a tea towel that you would like to see in the Virtual Tea Towel Museum, please send me a photo of it (with, or without, you in the picture) and the reason why you like it.  You could then be Guest Tea Towel 2021.

So I will say it: This has been a strange old year.  I can’t tell you about my holidays because I haven’t been away.  I can’t tell you about my trips to the theatre because I haven’t been there.  I made one trip to Aberdeen in February to see my friend Jean before ‘Lockdown’ and that’s about it for the year.  My cousin lives in Italy and we exchanged experiences. At the start, Italy was regarded as being a few weeks ahead of UK.  

Strangely, for me, Lockdown has not been too bad.  I completely revamped my garden, grew lots of vegetables and enjoyed breakfast, lunch and dinner in the garden.  I have become addicted to Jigsaw Puzzles, 1000 piece ones,  and, boy, have I done a lot‽  The quickest took one day, the most difficult four weeks.  Once Charity Shops opened, I scoured the local ones to find some jigsaw puzzles being sold at cheap prices.  It was no good, sometimes people had bent pieces and some had pieces missing.  That’s it for me, either new ones or exchanging them with friends, at a vast social distance, of course.

From the start of Lockdown Number 1, we had not bought enough toilet rolls.  I couldn’t get a delivery from a supermarket.  In the end, I ordered some from Amazon, can you believe it‽  The minimum number to be ordered was 96 rolls.  These lasted till well beyond the end of Lockdown.  I made sure that I had enough for Lockdown Number 2.  I made jam and pickles, walked more than I have ever walked and did an online exercise class every day.  I used Zoom (never having done so before), joined a Creative Writing Class online, watched a number of shows and concerts being streamed, reorganised my collection of 1400 tea towels and Blogged most days.  I’ve read more than usual and watched less TV (that is until the Christmas Movies started being shown on TV in the afternoon).  Isabella (the cat) has enjoyed having company, all day and every day, and has also enjoyed not having to go into the cattery when I went on holiday.  But I am glad that I have retired and don’t have to worry about things like ‘furloughing’ and ‘Covid-secure’ work places.

I set up a section in the Virtual Tea Towel Museum called ‘We’re all in this together’ where people have written about their experiences of Lockdown (which I linked with one of my own tea towels).  I have set Home Schooling Challenges for several children of my friends which have appeared in the Museum.  Sadly, in July, one of my oldest friends died, not of Coronavirus but of 17 years worth of cancer.  It was possible to keep in touch weekly via Zoom and had great fun playing ‘adapted’ board games.  For me, the worst thing was her fear of getting Coronavirus because she knew she couldn’t survive it.  Funerals have been strange at this time.  Pete, my friend’s husband, who has no children nor relatives nearby, has become part of our ‘Bubble’.  Together we have discovered the Nottingham Canal, Tapton Lock and the Chesterfield Canal, places that are suitably flat for long walks.  Nottingham appears to be somewhere with hidden gems of ‘plantations’, in the midst of housing estates.  We’ve found loads.

We are lucky to be within easy walking distance of all the shops you need, including a small Co-op and Sainsbury.  I have found Lockdown Number 2 more difficult, even though we had been well prepared, having already been in Tier 3.  Maybe because the weather is colder, maybe because more people I know have died (even if not from Coronavirus).  But I did manage to do all my Christmas shopping without going in a supermarket or using Amazon.

I have fantasised about holidays for next year but I’m not sure that I will feel confident enough in the science.  Maybe I will just enjoy the fruits of my labour in the garden!  The onions and garlic are looking good so far.

Christmas for me will be with ‘my bubble’.  I won’t want to meet with any other households because I want them to be around next year.  Please note  the lack of photos. Photos have been replaced by ‘stickers’; this is to use all the stickers up that my friend’s grandchildren have not been able to use this year. Next year they will be too old!

Keep Safe, Keep Well and Have a Happy Christmas

Barbara

Quarry Bank: Acquired 2020

I was given this tea towel by Brian, a man I have never met but who wanted his mother’s precious collection of tea towels to go to a good home. I was a very lucky person. This one had never been used; you can still see the creases embedded in it. It clearly celebrates the bicentennial anniversary of Quarry Bank Mill and, best of all, it was designed by Pat Albeck, my favourite tea towel designer.

On Sunday, I was watching ‘Countryfile’, on BBC1, only to see Quarry Bank. I thought “I’m sure I have an un-blogged-about tea towel from there”. The Woodland Trust has launched The Big Climate Fightback to tackle climate change and are calling on the public to plant more trees. The aim is to plant more than 50 million trees over the next five years. ‘Countryfile’ is taking part by aiming to plant one tree for every child who is starting Primary School this year, that is, 750,000 trees. ‘Countryfile’, in conjunction with the National Trust, is planting it’s own wood, open to everyone, at Quarry Bank. It will start with 3600 saplings on a two-hectare piece of land.

Prince Charles was interviewed saying “Planting a tree means leaving a lasting legacy. One that my and your children and grandchildren will be able to enjoy long after I am gone”. As I have gone on my Lockdown exercises, it is the trees that have inspired me, given me hope, brought beauty and life to what has been a ‘weird’ year. Watching ‘Countryfile’ made me smile and I look forward to seeing the updates over the coming months.

Lakeland Peaks: 2020

This is Blog Number 1001. That’s it, the last time I will talk about the number of Blogs I’ve done. Won’t mention it again until I’m nearer 1500, and that won’t be for a couple of years.

So back to traditional tea towels. This one is from Lindy (a friend of my cousin Amanda). I don’t know Lindy so I don’t know if she had been on holiday to the Lake District this year but it arrived, in the post, a couple of days ago. I’d just been waiting for a dry day to take a photo of it.

From a very young age, so, that was many moons ago, I went to the Lake District every year, often twice a year, with my mother. Dad was allowed very few holidays so he didn’t go on these trips. My mother liked to stay in Coniston, sometimes Windermere, because they were within reasonable travelling distance of Millom. Millom is just outside the boundaries of the Lake District. It was built as a New Town in 1866, around the ironworks. My mother’s family, on her mother’s side, all came from Millom; all the men of the family worked in the iron works.

My grandmother, Beatrice, was born in Millom. She had two sisters and a brother (Mona, Maggie and George). Beatrice died from TB, when my mother was just over two years old. In fact, my mother told me that she had no memory of her own mother, although she had a lot of photos of her. She said her first memory, ever, was of her mother’s coffin being carried down the stairs, ready for the funeral. My mother was then brought up by Aunty Mona, in Millom, until her father remarried when she was about 7 or 8 and then moved to London. Aunty Mona was a ‘legend’ in Millom. She looked exactly like Martha Longhurst from ‘Coronation Street’, complete with the hat and heavy black rimmed glasses. She had two husbands, both of whom died within a couple of years of being married to her; she didn’t have any children of her own, just my mother who she regarded as her own. She was very resentful of my grandfather ‘abandoning’ my mother in Millom, as a two year old, only to take her away to live, in London, with the stepmother she hadn’t met.

My mother made a ‘pilgrimage’ to see Aunty Mona on a regular basis and she, in turn, came to stay with us in London. I have a picture of her at my 21st birthday meal, at the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane. A very posh meal! I loved Aunty Mona, she was great fun, although she never looked it. A canny woman, she had bought a burial plot, when her first husband died, for three coffins, in case she married again. When she died she was to be laid on top of her two husbands. However, it had been a year of heavy rain and floods; the two coffins already in there were flooded, so we had to find another plot. If she had known, she wouldn’t have approved!

So each visit to Aunty Mona involved staying in the Lake District. After Aunty Mona died we continued to go to Millom to see Aunty Maggie and Uncle George, who both lived on their own, until they died. I miss those visits. When I was ‘down-sizing’ in 2017, I came across my grandmother’s Land Army arm-band and badge, which I passed on to the museum in Millom. One day, after this pandemic is under control, I will visit once more.