Diary Of An Ordinary Woman

I’m currently reading the ‘Diary of an Ordinary Woman’ by Margaret Forster. The book is a very cleverly put together work of fiction, a novel written in the style of a diary. But it is such a realistic “diary” that many readers of the first edition were duped into thinking it was indeed the memoirs of Millicent King, who was born in 1901 and kept a continuous record of her life from 1914 to 1995. Later editions of the book make it clear that it is in fact a novel.

Apparently, Forster (a well known novelist, biographer, memoirist and social historian) received a letter from the person to whom the book is dedicated, saying that her 98-year old mother had kept a diary since she was 13. The woman proposed that Forster edit her mother’s diaries for publication, but then the diarist’s granddaughter got very upset, as her grandmother had promised her the diaries, so the project was axed. Forster decided to go ahead anyway...not with the original diaries, of course, but with the idea of an "ordinary woman" whose private jottings provide insight into what it was like to be one of the many women who lived through the two world wars. It makes for fascinating reading, as Foster has clearly thoroughly researched the period for the background to the novel, and strongly develops Millie’s character through very believable diary entries. The narrative gradually change in style to match Millie growing up and going through life.

One of my regrets in life is that I didn’t keep a regular diary...not that I’ve lead a particularly exciting life (yet), but it would perhaps have been interesting to someday look back over my younger days and remember what I was thinking and feeling at that time. I would imagine the entry on the day I met B would have been something along the lines of...

Can’t remember exact day, March 1995
Full morning of lectures and Biochem prac pm. Annoying postgrad dude was hanging around, trying to chat up T [lab partner] - she is not interested but still strings him along. Went to dinner early with A&F. Usual crappy res. swill. M was there with his friend, B – what an arsehole! Thinks he’s some kind of god coz he’s studying comp sci at Tech and did his work experience in London. Kept throwing insults in my direction, so I had to retaliate. Asked him why he has no other friends that he has to hang around varsity students on a Friday night. Apparently, he’s some school friend of M’s visiting for the weekend. Just hope he’s not going to be hanging around now all the time. Went to ‘The Naught’ for some drinks with A, F, M. That B tagged along too, of course. M&B were quite drunk. I was too but pretended to be very sober, just to prove a point to B. He was being friendly with some other girl. She’s welcome to him.

I suppose it’s never too late to start keeping a diary. In fact, some blogs take the form of diary...a daily record of one’s life and the happenings in the world at the time. Just for fun, here are the "entries" for the last two days of my life....

Wed, 17 March 2010
Absolutely shattered. Hardly slept last night, as usual before a trip to the office. Tried taking melatonin this time as it worked when we went to LA, but maybe it’s just good for jetlag. Have now exhausted (ha ha!) all sleeping aids available without prescription. Miraculously managed to drive to Oxford without falling asleep at the wheel and causing carnage on a mass scale. Did almost get taken out by truck driver in the Roundabout of Death near M40. Cotswolds are looking so pretty in the spring sunshine – snowdrops and daffodils at the verges. Spent most of the day in meetings re Big Nob Client. Crap, another project for them. Ate too much cake, N's birthday. Drive home was long but OK – had to slow down twice to let pheasants cross the road – dumbass birds! So relieved to finally get home. B made delicious Toad In The Hole. Long bath and bed by 930.


Thurs, 18 March 2010
Still feeling washed out from Tues night - how do people cope with constant sleep deprivation, when they have small kids? Pressurised day, deadline for Big Nob Client. Worked till 7 then went to Aikido. Too tired to think properly and messed up all techniques. Spiderman [dude with rings in ear, nose, lip and possibly other unmentionable places] almost broke my arm. Sensei told him to slow down and think more! Tattoo Man showed me nifty wrist twist manoeuvre. Someone was farting loudly the whole class...wasn’t me, but I did worry after baked beans on toast lunch. Got back at 10 and had to reply to some emails from Big Nob Client. Too wound up to sleep till midnight; watched “The Body Guard”...what a load of old cods! Can’t believe I once thought KC was quite hot. Remember “Robin Hood”?

Hmmm, perhaps it’s best if I stick with my “random but hopefully slightly interesting or maybe even funny tales” style of blog entry. My life is far too boring for daily postings and someone has already published ‘Diary of A Nobody’ (a very funny read if you ever get the chance).

Performance Anxiety

The thing I fear most at the start of every Aikido class (obviously apart from incurring grievous bodily harm along the lines of a cracked skull or shattered shoulder from an ukemi gone wrong) is being called up by Sensei to play uke (‘attacker’) while he demonstrates a technique to the class. Fortunately, as I am still completely useless one of the newbies, this has only happened twice so far and he usually asks someone who actually has a vague idea of what they are expected to do....or at least knows their left leg from their right...

Sensei: “Place your left leg forward...the other left leg...no, the other left leg...OK, you know the leg you have forward now? Well, it’s not that one!”

Never one to enjoy being the centre of attention, I feel extremely self conscious and awkward and become quite ‘incompos mentis’ if asked to stand up and speak or even walk in front of loads of people. I’m far happier being an observer in the crowd.

I was always in the background for school plays, and would keep quiet in class if I knew the answer, refusing to read aloud as I was too embarrassed to do so in front of my class. Consequently, for most of my first year of school, the teacher assumed that I had a learning disability and recommended that my parents consider placing me in a school for children with special needs, as my reading and speech skills apparently lagged so far behind the rest of my class. This puzzled my parents: “She never shuts up at home, and she’s been easily reading the school books of the neighbour’s son...and he’s three years’ ahead of her in school!”

Wasn't much fun for me for long

In later life I had to learn to overcome my extreme shyness to cope with oral examinations and presentations, and panel interviews for a university scholarship, a postgraduate university place and jobs...but these have been some of the biggest challenges of my life.

With the rise in popularity of reality TV shows over the past decade, it seems like “Everyone wants to be on TV” and there is no shortage of fame-hungry people, willing to bare their bodies and souls for their five seconds in the limelight.

But I’m in no position to pass judgement on others. I must confess that I have in fact appeared on TV, way back when I represented my school in the Zimbabwe National High Schools Quiz. Yeah, yeah I am was a complete geek and I also didn’t really have a choice in the matter....feigning sudden appendicitis/leprosy/smallpox/bubonic plague didn’t hold much sway with the Great Dictator ("I only vant to hear von click!") aka my headmistress. I consoled myself with the hope that no 'normal' people would be watching the programme...but unfortunately this was in the days before satellite TV had really kicked off and therefore most of the country that owned a set were tuned into primetime viewing on that one (and only) channel.

I was never this 'cool' at school

Our school team made it to the semi-finals, which went to a dead heat...and then we were just pipped to the post for a place in the finals. My parents were ever so proud and kept a videotape recording of the show, that they would haul out and play to long-suffering relatives. What a relief when that accursed tape went astray when my family packed up to move over to the UK....

And Now For My Mom's Story

Today is Mothering Sunday in the UK...the equivalent to Mother’s Day, which falls on May 9th this year in most of the rest of the world. I've told you a bit about my dad's early life in my last post, so perhaps today is a fitting time to tell you a bit about my mom.

She was born in a small South African town, just a few days before the outbreak of World War II. My grandfather and most of his six brothers promptly signed up for active service, and while my grandfather never left the shores of South Africa as his welding skills were more valuable to the army on home soil, my mom’s uncles were sent to Egypt, where they claim to have almost single-handedly defeated Rommel’s forces.

Desert warfare

As for most families at that time, the war years were hard on my mom’s parents...they struggled to get by on my grandfather’s army pay, food was scarce and my grandmother was never well and often in hospital, leaving my young mom in the care of a cantankerous hostel owner. A year after the end of the war, my aunt was born....much to the disgust of my mom who longed for a new brother to replace the one she lost to pneumonia in 1941. My grandparents just managed to stop my mom from pushing her unwanted baby sister out of the window of a third floor apartment, otherwise she may have grown up an only child.

When my mom was nine years old, the family emigrated to the then British colony of southern Rhodesia. My grandfather was wary of the National Party that had come to power in South Africa in June 1948, and he believed that the family would have a better life north of the border. And so they packed up their belongings and took the train up to Salisbury (now Harare). I won’t dwell too much on the rest of my mom’s childhood... it was not a particularly happy one. My grandfather battled with alcoholism that made for an insecure home life and that would eventually destroy his health.

Salisbury

Luckily, my mom rose above these challenges and completed her school education aged 16 and entered secretarial college. Six months later she was a highly competent shorthand typist and soon found a job working in the offices of government.....she was working as a secretary there at the time Ian Smith unilaterally declared independence from Britain on 11 November 1965, and it was there in 1962 that she first met my dad, who at that time was working for the Rhodesian Tourist Board. They were engaged within six weeks, married a year later, and lived together moreorless happily ever after... through the turbulent 1960s and 1970s, the hopeful 1980s and the declining 1990s in Zimbabwe, until it became obvious at the start of the new century that they would have to move to safer pastures. The rest, as the saying goes, is history....

'The King' - my mom's first love

My Dad's Story

I wrote this quite a while ago and have been deliberating about posting it for ages. I'm not sure it will be of any interest to anyone...but then the same could be said for everything most of what I put up here. It may just give you some insight into my background.

When my dad was very ill last year, he started reminiscing a lot about his early life. I suppose having a serious illness does that to you....you start taking stock of what’s gone before, as you’re not sure what lies ahead. I’m going to tell you a bit about my dad’s early life, which I've pieced together from a lot of conversations.

He was born in 1935, just outside London....the second of five children (four boys, with a girl in the middle). The first three children were born within a couple of years of each other and then my grandmother had many miscarriages, which took a toll on her health. My dad’s other two brothers are 15 and 21 years younger than him, so they didn’t really play a part in his childhood.

My grandfather was a carpenter by trade and my grandmother was a skilled dressmaker.  During the Second World War, my grandfather managed a shipyard that converted merchant ships into gun battle ships. He also did repair work on some of the bombed buildings in London. He was in fact repairing the damage to St Pauls Cathedral when another bomb fell that destroyed his work and all his tools. My dad can remember the noise and fires from bombing raids over London vividly...every night his brother and he slept in a cold Anderson Bomb Shelter in their back garden, while my grandparents took their chances in the house, with my aunt who was just a baby. Luckily for them, no bombs fell close by.

St Pauls in 'The Blitz'

When we were growing up, my dad always used to harp on about he had to walk miles to school (in the snow of course, as it was apparently always snowing). In reality, school for my dad was just over the road from their house...we found this out years later when when he took us on a trip down Memory Lane to the places of his childhood. My grandparents both came from large families, so my dad had a load of aunts and uncles around while he was growing up. One of my grandfather's sisters had a child out of wedlock following a brief romance with a “Yank” soldier stationed in Britain during the war...it was apparently a big scandal in the family at the time.

After the war ended, Britain was a pretty grim place....London was virtually a bomb site, food rationing would carry on until the mid 1950s and jobs were scarce. So it was probably no surprise that my grandfather decided to move the family out to the then colony of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), which promised a good life of hot sunshine, wide open spaces, good food and jobs for those willing to work. Along with masses of other immigrants, the family set sail from Southampton for the long voyage to Cape Town and docked into Table Bay on Christmas Day, 1947....my dad remembers it being a scorchingly hot day.

The Royal Visit, Cape Town 1947

From Cape Town, the family travelled up north by train, finally settling in Bulawayo. There my dad restarted school and also took violin lessons. He became an accomplished musician, and was even offered a place at the Royal Music College....but being a musician was not a manly enough job for any son of my grandfather, and the stubborn old man refused to sign the scholarship papers, thus dashing my dad's hopes of becoming a professional violinist. Instead, aged 16 my dad took up an apprenticeship as a printer (back in the days when printing was done by type setting), and his music became a hobby that still brings him much enjoyment today.

Bulawayo City Hall

As a young man, my dad had many sporting achievements...he played rugby at provincial level, was a strong swimmer and earned a life saving medal. He was passionate about cars and spent months overhauling a Jaguar E type, back in his carefree bachelor days. Always keen to study new things, he went to university as a mature student in the early 1980s to obtain his Bachelor's Degree in modern history, another of his great interests. I remember going to my dad's graduation as a young child, and I think he was quite proud to attend mine..... a good education for his children meant everything to him.

Type setting printers

When I was younger (and sometimes still today) I clashed with my dad over almost every issue. Possibly we have personalities that are a bit too similar...he is incredibly stubborn, argumentative at times, fanatical about everything he does and persistent to the very end. I think I'm the diluted version...

It's been a year since my dad was first diagnosed with advanced cancer. He is still going strong and the most recent scan shows no further disease progression. Sometimes stubborn persistence can be a good thing.

The Bear Facts

After much deliberation, humming and hawing, fretting over the prices, and debating whether we can indeed live on cheese on toast for the next 6 months, we’ve finally booked our trip to Canada!

We fly into Vancouver mid June and will be travelling the following route to reach Calgary by month end:

One of the highlights of the trip for me is going to be the possibility of seeing black and grizzly bear in their natural habitat....contrary to a surprisingly popular held belief, there are NO bears (or tigers for that matter) in Africa, and while lions and cheetahs may be found in abundance in game reserves, they do NOT roam the streets of southern African cities. The only bear of my childhood was an old, bedraggled cloth teddy called "Freddy".

There's likely more wildlife to be found on the streets of a typical UK city, where urban foxes abound in the twilight hours...mangy, scrawny scavengers that emit annoyingly loud yowling sounds, definitely not conducive to a good night's sleep. I was completely freaked out the first time I came across one of these creatures, boldy scratching though our rubbish bag. He halted momentarily in his business and stared at me as if to say "Who you lookin' at? Can't you see I iz busy here grocery shopping 'n sh*t?"  Foxes reminded me of the African jackal, and seemed out of place in a concrete jungle. I've since encountered their rural cousins...shyer, better fed animals, more akin to the fabulous, bushy-tailed fox of Roald Dahl's tale of 'Fantastic Mr Fox', some nostalgia from my early reading days. I've yet to see a live badger, but I've heard they can be pretty bad tempered...hedgehogs may be a little prickly too, but they're ever so cute, when they rustle through your garden at night, crunching on snails.

Anyway, I digress. Back to the bears....apparently, in the past century, around 100 people died in North America due to bear attacks. I do not want to become part of that "grizzly" statistic. We'll be hiking as part of a small group, escorted by a tour leader, who will hopefully not lead us into situations where a mauling from a pissed off bear is likely....nonetheless, a bit of background survival info may make an unexpected encounter a bit more bearable. Do a google search on "Surving A Bear Attack" and you'll find there are loads of dubious informative websites offering wacky handy hints. You can read some of them over at The Art of Manliness (did you know that Manliness is a lost Art in much need of revival?).

The key to survival appears to be knowing the difference between a grizzly and a black bear, as you have to play dead with the first and fight for your life with the second. I really wouldn't want to get those two options mixed up, and I'm also not too confident I'll be able to apply my Aikido moves to a 600 pound sow who thinks I'm in the market for a rug made from the finest cub fur (possibly even Tattoo Man, famous for his monkey grappling techniques, would be hard pressed to wriggle his way out of such a bad situation). I'm hoping that any Canadian readers will jump in here now to impart their wealth of knowledge about bear-related matters...after all, you guys must be fending grizzlies off on a daily basis (you know, like all southern Africans know how to wrestle with lions!)

Grizzly (Ursus Arctos Horribilis) photo found HERE

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In other Very Exciting News, I am the winner of Rebecca@DiaryofaVirginNovelist's giveaway! You really should visit her blog found HERE.

Wardrobe Malfunction

I recently decided that I’d go the whole hog with the Aikido lark and invest in a gi...thereby at least I can look the part even if I have absolutely no idea of what I’m doing!

Was there ever a less flattering outfit on the planet? It’s almost as bad as my old school uniform (the delightful combo of a navy blue, below the knee length box pleat skirt and beige safari suit style top) for adding the pounds onto my already ample derrière. Seriously, Skeletal Spice (Victoria Beckham) would look like she’s been eating all the pies in this gear.

Anyways, I’m not in this for the fashion stakes. What I am more worried about is having a wardrobe malfunction akin to Janet Jackson’s infamous Super Bowl incident back in 2004. The last thing I need is my ukemi turning into a “viewkemi”, much to delight of the male populace of the dojo. And thus I am investing in many high necked white t-shirts to wear under the jacket and over a super-shock-absorbing sports bra...I reckon my hips will take care of holding up the trousers.

Many moons ago, I had the dubious pleasure of working with an exceptionally accident-prone girl. I’m not sure if she was scatterbrained or just really unlucky, but every day seemed to spell fresh disasters for her....like the time she left her laptop on a train, the laptop that held the only copy of her PhD thesis that she’s been writing up for over 6 months and hadn’t once thought to make a back-up! Not long after this tragedy, she was on her way to work when she inadvertently lost her skirt in a freak accident involving rapidly closing train doors. Mortified, the poor girl had to cover her modesty with her empty laptop case, jump into the first taxi cab to draw up outside the station, who was willing to whisk her away to the high street for some hasty clothes’ shopping before work. As it was, she already had a bit of a reputation around the office for wearing outfits that most other people would not consider appropriate business attire. Golden rule, ladies...if you’re going to wear a lace-up blouse probably more at home on the set of “Pirates of the Caribbean”, don’t forget your bra...

Arrrrrrr!

Spring Has Sprung...At Last!

It's the first day of spring and there are finally some signs of life after seemingly endless months of winter.

Some snaps from the weekend...

Snowdrops

 

Crocus buds

 

Active squirrel