Thursday 29 November 2018

November. News!

November has been such a roller-coaster month.

We began by returning unscathed from England, with just a minor panic attack from Pickle the last night in Poole. The slightest pop of fireworks sets her off for hours. She burrows on the bed under the pillows, trying to climb all over us in a futile effort to escape. #thatdog

Straight back into the second half of term. By Monday lunchtime it felt as if we'd never had a week off. (I console myself with the thought that younger members of staff - some half my age - are equally exhausted... and I was only feeling somewhat fatigued because of an incipient cold/random virus.) Still, another day and then I was off to London. INVITED TO BUCKINGHAM PALACE!!  What an adventure!! Yes, I was - and still am - beyond excited.  Still haven't really come down from the high several weeks later....

The day was not just about the palace, though. Nevertheless, once my head graciously gave me permission (and authorised the purchase of my air ticket!), it was all I could think of. I made sure I would be dressed smartly enough, even purchasing new boots to replace my annually mended and resoled workhorses which had lasted me for several years. I organised to see Sue, my best friend from college, who I had not seen for upwards of three decades, before the event at the Palace; and arranged a visit to my sister – again, it was twelve years, we worked out, since I had been to London. The ‘joys’ of living on an island: an expensive air fare rather than a drive in a car or a hop on a train.

I felt like a child again, waiting for The Day to arrive. As it was, I barely slept the night before, getting up eventually at 5 to catch the red-eye from Guernsey. I managed – country hick that I am – to find my way up to London, with the help of delightful rail officials. Meeting Sue, the years rolled away almost as if they had never happened. We talked and talked; drank coffee after coffee; laughed and giggled; reminisced, the shared memories recalled with uncanny accuracy; and caught up some on the years inbetween. By the end of the few hours we had together, we were, as when we were in our teens and twenties, laughing together about nothing, just for the sheer joy of friendship.

You’d think I would appreciate a visit to London after so long: I did, in a way. I walked across Waterloo Bridge, wandered through Covent Garden and Green Park, yet barely took any of it in, so deep in conversation that I was almost oblivious to my surroundings.
From Waterloo Bridge
Covent Garden

 

Covent Garden

Canadian memorial in Green Park





I managed to listen to the buskers in Covent Garden shopping centre: first Irish music, then the most wonderful opera singer. Admired some of the Christmas decorations already outside the shops. Snapped a shot of the Thames from the bridge. Enjoyed the changing colours of the trees in Green Park. Posed for a photo outside Buckingham Palace. Didn’t want to say goodbye to Sue.



We’ll make sure it won’t be another thirty years!

The joy of friendship. And the sorrows... we prayed our way through the month as dear friends battle with (yet another) cancer diagnosis; other close-as-family friends, our relationship spanning several decades, pray anxiously over a frail and sickly newborn. Praise God, although she had to be resuscitated at birth (no heart rate, barely breathing) and showed all the signs of severed brain damage, by four days later she was pronounced 'normal', much to the surprise of the medical profession. We were not surprised: hundreds had been praying for her around the globe. Yet what a traumatic start to her life for her, her parents and young brother, not to mention the anxious grandparents and other extended family. It will take a while to recover...

These friends have journeyed through life with us for more than three decades, over several continents. Six of us - three young couples - started off together in a small East African town. More than thirty years later, our work spans the USA, Africa, Central Asia and a tiny island in the English Channel. Two of the couples had their first child on consecutive days; now, within three weeks will be the arrival of three grandchildren, one for each of us. The fourth for one couple, the second for another and the first for us.

Sometimes, numbers and 'coincidences' fascinate more than, perhaps, they should.

Other November News was the conversion of our house into a Tracey Emin-type modern art installation. It began in hall, where the inside parts of a kitchen carousel leant negligently against the wall: the eye was led, inexorably, on to the kitchen, with tins of food and empty cake tins piled artistically high on every available surface. This was paired with the removal of one cupboard to reveal a meaningful empty space and an array of copper piping, tinted with turquoise. The backdrop of walls behind spaghetti-like pipework was washed in shades of brown and dirty grey...  All translated as: there was a leak in a copper heating pipe, which could only be accessed by removing the cupboard completely. The 'art installation' was, after too long several weeks, removed...

This was the major art event of the month, but minor works, displayed for the duration and on into December, included an array of spanners displayed next to a radiator (which apparently was not working correctly; a dismantled electric socket, wires peeping out from the empty hole; and Who Knows What up in the loft, where investigations into the water system had begun....

#sogladtolivewithahandyman #saiddoubtfully  #perhaps   #he'sacleverchap #doityourself #savemoney

Meanwhile, right at the end of the month, we receive a message from Auckland: Cat is in labour.

I knit, watching 'how to knit' vidoes to hone up on very rusty knitting skills, which have lain unused for over three decades...
Richard watches Youtube videos on secondary return hot water systems.  #residenthotwaterengineer  #nothingthismancan'tdo  #latestcraze  #intoheatingsystems

And then... Cara Grace arrives on November 29th! Such a beautiful baby... not that we're biased, of course...



Spectacular sunsets...



Sunday 11 November 2018

November. Never Such Innocence.

The big news in November, was, inevitably, my visit to Buckingham Palace. As a guest. Wow.

Even now, it seems like a dream. I can’t say ‘a dream come true’ because I had never in my entire life dreamed of going inside Buckingham Palace, let alone as an invited guest.

I am more than a little embarrassed about it all because, initially, I didn’t take it seriously.

The invitation from Never Such Innocence to its Centenary Finale at Buckingham Palace, arrived by email, personally addressing me by name and telling me how important it was that I should attend.

I ignored it. Actually, that is not entirely true. The invitation first popped in to my inbox as a ‘save the date’ and I did indeed look up the date, some months in advance. When I saw that it fell on a weekday when I would be at work, I dismissed it: I assumed I would not be able to attend. Indeed, I did not realise the personal nature of the invitation.

I don't know what I was thinking. I mean, BUCKINGHAM PALACE! It's not every day or indeed any day that you get an invite like that.

Then the actual invitation arrived, asking me to RSVP so that I could receive my entry ticket. I ignored it again. Even though it was addressed to me personally, I just assumed that it was one of the clever emails which are sent to thousands, with the name of the recipient cunningly inserted for each one.

Then the events organiser phoned the school where I teach, asking me to phone him. I forgot. It was only when I received a ‘last chance’ email that I realised that I should, perhaps, let my headteacher know about the invitation: perhaps he would go to the tea party?

Well, he couldn’t. He wanted to, of course, but the invitation was to me personally. Why?

Not because I am anyone important, or special in any way.  I was personally invited just for doing my job.

As a Year 6 class teacher, I had planned lessons and sent off the children’s entries for an international art and poetry competition organised by a charity set up to promote understanding of the First World War, for the four centenary years. The first year, one of our children achieved a prize as a runner up and again, a couple of years later, so did another. To celebrate and ‘wind up’ the project, the organising charity had arranged to host a tea party at Buckingham Palace, inviting the prize winners and those teachers who had supported the initiative.





To say I was excited is an understatement. I was BEYOND excited. I have never – and am still not – been impressed by celebrities. Rather, my childhood heroes were people such as Albert Schweitzer, who dedicated his life to serving others in the Congo, or others who sacrificed their own ambitions to help those in need or those who, like Connie Ten Boom, endured horrendous suffering and preached forgiveness. But, somehow, this was different. This was an invitation to somewhere which cannot be bought or achieved through effort and striving. The invitation was a purely gracious, unearned gift.

I really didn’t think it applied to me. As my brother asked, somewhat incredulously, when I recounted how I had only accepted the invitation at the very last minute when it was clear that I really WAS invited, “Didn’t you think you deserved to go?”
Well, no, I didn’t. I really didn’t think I did deserve such an honour.
I was right. I didn’t really deserve it, but, in the end, I did accept with delight. Yes, I suppose you could say I ‘earned’ the invitation because I taught the lessons, helped the children with their work and sent in the competition entries. Yet my hard work could have gone unrewarded – indeed, there were many teachers who were not invited. I had no control over whether or not I could enter the palace.

Nevertheless, once my head graciously gave me permission (and authorised the purchase of my air ticket!), it was all I could think of. 

I felt like a child again, waiting for The Day to arrive. As it was, I barely slept the night before, getting up eventually at 5 to catch the red-eye from Guernsey. I managed – country hick that I am – to find my way up to London, with the help of delightful rail officials. 


About to enter through the outer gates....
So, there I was, approaching the main gate, showing my entry card and passport to the policemen on duty before joining the crocodile of people walking across the gravel to the ‘front door’ and in to the quadrangle. We filed our way across the quadrangle and through the Grand Entrance to the west-facing garden façade at the rear of the palace, greeted with a fanfare from a brass quintet (from the Coldstream Guards, according to the programme) before we deposited our coats to smiling girls, leaving phones and cameras with them: No Photography Allowed.

A visit to the Ladies’ Cloakroom downstairs – quiet, thickly piled carpet – was a surprise. The ‘Water Closet’ seemed Victorian, being like a commode with a dark wooden seat and a separate flushing system, whereby one pulled up a handle in a recessed bowl next to the toilet seat. Fascinating. One of many ‘wish I had a camera’ moments.

We then made our way along a wide, carpeted corridor. The opening of the Olympic Games in London showed Her Majesty walking along just such a corridor with James Bond.... Then up the Grand Staircase and along the Picture Gallery, which is top-lit and 55 yards long. The Gallery is hung with numerous works of Queen Victoria and her family, including some by Rembrandtvan DyckRubens and Vermeer ...huge paintings which I had only seen in books. Several of them were ones we had used in our recent Year 6 project on Queen Victoria – how strange to see them, hugely larger than life, in reality.  The RAF Salon Orchestra entertained us with music for string instruments as we waited to be registered, before we entered the Ballroom.

It was HUGE. Six massive crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, which was ornately carved and painted in white and gold, with carvings on the arches above the two thrones at the far end of the room, a minstrels gallery and massive organ at the back.

The Ballroom is the largest and most important room in the palace, built in 1856. 120 feet long, nearly 60 feet wide and 44 feet high. State banquet and investitures are held here: Prince William had, indeed, performed some in this very room that same morning, standing on the same spot as the children did when they performed their poems and songs. Velvet upholstered chairs were set out in the middle of the room, but I was fortunate enough to be seated on the upper tier of a (velvet upholstered) bench, affording me a wonderful view of the proceedings.

(And let me say now that any further description is all thanks to Wikipedia. I barely took in all the magnificence in detail, so bemused was I by the grandeur of the palace.)

The proceedings began with a drum display by the Royal Marines Drums Corps: indeed, these five drummers performed a real ‘drum roll’ before every child’s performance.

The presentations were a lovely mixture of messages from adults and a celebration of the children’s work which was, indeed, the main focus of the afternoon. Lady Lucy French, founder of Never Such Innocence, spoke charmingly, extending many thank yous to all those who had helped in the last four years: including the teachers - 40 of us had been invited. Sir Tim Laurence, the President of NSI, welcomed us. Statements from various Secretaries of State were read out, including a statement from the Prime Minister, Theresa May. There were messages from high-ranking officers in the Forces. And the many songs and poems performed by the children – including one from a five year old, speaking the poem she had composed when she was still only three – were, at times, incredibly moving.

Afterwards, we were directed to the Blue Drawing Room, the Music Room and the Green Room for afternoon tea. Filled with priceless Chinese vases, hung with huge portraits, these very formal rooms are astoundingly opulent: it was no surprise to learn that they are used only for ceremonial and official entertaining.

The people I met were, mainly, the children and their parents: they were delightful. Their art and poetry has been published in a beautiful book: so much talent.11,000 competition entries over the four years.




(I encountered a few important adults: the commander of the Wellington Barracks at the Horse Guards Parade, and a Jesuit priest, Father Anthony Nye who, to my great delight, knew  another Jesuit, Fr Bernard Basset, who had been a great encouragement to me as a questioning teenager, mainly through his books which I still own. (Fr Bernard was priest on the Isles of Scilly when I was growing up in the 70s: I knew him from my summer visits, enjoying visiting his tiny church on St Mary's. In those early ecumenical times, he had a garden bench with two labels on: ‘Protestant’ at one end and ‘Catholic’ at the other. Fr Bernard insisted on sitting in the middle...)

It was wonderful that the emphasis of the day was, quite rightly, on the children: they were introduced to Sir Tim, posed for photos with men resplendent in uniform, even trying on a busby for size on their little heads...

I can barely describe the sense of honour and privilege I felt, which was, I think, shared by most of the other guests. (There were, of course, those so distinguished that it was certainly not the first time they had been invited to the palace, Sir Tim Lawrence of course predominant among them.) I felt most incredibly ‘special’ that was not personal in any way: nothing I had done, no sense of pride or accomplishment. Just a sense of receiving an undeserved honour and of being invited into the highest place in the land. It was mindblowing to think that the Queen was elsewhere in the building.... It was all magical, like something out of a fairy tale...

So, a few days later, I am still reeling from the experience. One delightful thing I take away is that I was just.doing.my.job.  I use it as example for the children: perhaps a boy feels unimportant because he is playing a back in the B team when he longs to be captain of the A team. “Just do your job,” I tell the children. “Do your job as well as you can, and better. For who knows where it might take you?”

Certainly I had never, ever, dreamed, in all my years of teaching, that simply doing my job as a teacher would take me to Buckingham Palace. Wow. Indeed.