Holidays

Home From Home

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Staying in someone else’s home is the topic I chose for our writers’ group when it was my turn this week. It covers a wide range of experiences from world leaders being the guests of royal families, to school children going on sleepovers, so I am expecting them all to have come up with a piece.

I have stayed in many homes, sometimes those of strangers. As the eldest in the family I was often farmed out to make way for visiting friends and relatives. Looking back now, senior me would be appalled at the thought of sleeping on a stranger’s living room floor with several friends. Last week I did sleep in an office; modern working from home means spare bedrooms have become offices. However, the sofa bed was very comfortable and I did have exclusive use of the shower room next door, except when boys were having showers or going for a …

How kind were the many people who put me and friends up on various travels. Nowadays I prefer to be the hostess not the guest and we have had many people to stay over the years.

Whether you are staying or having visitors, the bad experiences are more fun to write about.

Worst Sleepover

My younger son and his best friend, plus a boy we had never met, were taken to the speedway by BF’s Dad. They enjoyed the evening and the sort of takeaway food you can get away with when there are no mothers around – this fact is relevant to the story.  They then came back to our house to get settled into sleeping bags in our son’s room.

At 3am our bedroom door was flung open and son announced that the ‘other boy’ had been sick in his sleeping bag.

Worst Christmas – also involving vomiting.

My friend and I left Perth, Western Australia, having cadged a lift across the Nullabor Plain with a family friend. Our final destination was Tasmania. My friend being a laid back Aussie country girl assured me her various relatives would be happy to put us up. Our first stop was her aunt in South Australia for Christmas. They had an apricot farm near the Murray River and another aunt lived across the road. They also owned a shop down in the town – relevant fact.

They welcomed us in the lead up to Christmas and we planned to leave on Boxing Day. Christmas Eve proved eventful as the aunt across the road was having a miscarriage and my friend commandeered our driver to take Aunty to hospital. I was left alone to look after her other children, who I had never met before, in a house I had never been in and feed them.

Christmas Day was very pleasant, but that night my friend and I were awoken by the most horrendous noise. Our driver had food poisoning… what we subsequently discovered was that other visiting relatives had noticed one of the freezers in the family shop was dodgy and had warned each other not to touch the chicken.

We set off for Melbourne the next morning with my friend assuring our poor driver he would be fine. We made it, but I succumbed to the food poisoning the following day.

At some stage we bade farewell to our driver and went to stay with another aunt and uncle in a posh house. After a couple of nights we took a coach to Sydney where we stayed in a Girls’ Friendly Society hostel. We had to sign back in before midnight, even on New Year’s Eve. We then returned to Melbourne for a planned second short stay with the aunt and uncle before our flight to Tasmania, but they had mysteriously disappeared on holiday!

With no money set aside for accommodation we wandered into a respectable Christian bookshop in the city and asked a young shop assistant if she knew any cheap accommodation. She replied that her father had just gone away for a few days and she would be delighted to have some company to stay as she did not like to be alone.

What are your best or worst experiences of staying in someone else’s home? Take this quiz to find out if you are a good guest.

Your host is lactose intolerant, vegetarian and teetotal. Do you arrive with

A  a homemade vegan cake you have made especially

B  a lovely bouquet of flowers

C  a bottle of wine, box of chocolates and pork pies from ‘our lovely farm shop’.

One person in the family has to get up very early and catch a train to work. You always wake up early so do you

A  Check the night before what time they go out the door, so you do not get in their way. Hide under the covers not making a sound in case they worry they have woken you up.

B  Dash in the shower and hope you are out before they want to come in the bathroom.

C  Get up to make a cup of tea for both of you and take the chance to have a nice catch up chat.

Your host is cooking the evening meal, do you

A  Peep round the kitchen door say ‘You don’t want any help do you’ and retreat quickly.

B  Ask if there is anything you can do and keep out of the way of the cooker and the cook while you peel the potatoes as requested.

C  When the cook says ‘No you go and watch television, I don’t need any help’ insist on helping and showing how you usually do the potatoes and catching them up with all the latest events in your life.

All Cs, I am away that week, sorry, though I do like chocs and wine…

All As and Bs I’ll just check the calendar…

All As  You are welcome to stay

Steps

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 32 Comments

No holiday is complete without steps, not the steps your Fitbit counts, real steps you climb to reach a destination, a view you would otherwise never see.

Visitors to Paris head for Le Tour Eiffel, as those of us doing Duolingo like to call it. Why do we give it an English name when we call other famous Paris locations by their proper French names? Anyway, last century found us in Paris with the children and arriving at Le Tour Eiffel we noticed one ’leg’ had no queue, this was where to climb the stairs. Alas one can only take steps to the first and second floor, the public are not allowed on the final flight for safety reasons and take a lift. Still, we climbed up 674 steps and felt we deserved the view of Paris spread before us, so different from London, white buildings laid out geometrically.

We have also been up the Blackpool Tower, half the height of Eiffel, but it does have a famous ballroom, where countless steps have graced the floor.

Sometimes steps are the reason for the holiday. We were watching a programme about Whitby, on the Yorkshire coast, or perhaps it was a programme about Dracula. We instantly decided Whitby would be our next holiday destination so we could walk up the 199 steps. There have been steps here since at least 1340 when Pilgrims would climb wooden steps to Whitby Abbey.

In 1774 they were replaced by stone. Nowadays they are famous for their appearance in the real Dracula story by Bram Stoker. Dracula’s ship, with the crew all dead, was wrecked at the foot of the cliffs and Dracula, in the form of a black dog, runs up the steps to the graveyard of Saint Mary’s church.

As well as the church you will find the ruins of Whitby Abbey, an iconic sight whether you are down in the town or out at sea. It is worth the saunter up the steps to look down on the harbour, river and town. Whitby turned out to be a good place for a holiday with beaches, the quaint old town and plenty of Dracula souvenirs. We have been there several times and up and down the steps numerous times.

https://www.thewhitbyguide.co.uk/listings/199-steps/

There are plenty of other places to visit with opportunities to climb winding narrow steps. Take your choice from castles, cathedrals and lighthouses.

Lincoln is a great city to visit with the added bonus of the iconic narrow street called Steep Hill which you climb to visit the cathedral as the pilgrims did long ago.  They did not have the lovely shops, cafes and bars to visit along the way. Conveniently close to the beautiful cathedral is the castle. Climb the steps to walk all round the castle walls.

https://www.lincolncastle.com/

Durham Cathedral can be seen for miles around and is one of the wonderful views from the East Coast mainline.

When we went there ten years ago a small door led to one of the two western towers, climb up this tower, then walk across to the central tower. This long gallery was where the defibrillator was kept, which hopefully you would not need if you had read the dire warnings about not climbing if you have a heart condition. The lovely views were well worth the climb.

https://www.durhamcathedral.co.uk/

The fun with lighthouses is the design that makes the winding stairs narrower and narrower as you ascend. Portland Bill lighthouse stands at the rugged tip of the Isle of Portland, Dorset and its red and white bands make it a popular subject for photographers. You can have a guided tour to take the 155 steps to the lantern room.

In contrast, the old black Dungeness lighthouse suits the bleak landscape of vast stretches of shingle, home to nuclear power stations. When we climbed on two occasions I did not step outside onto the narrow balcony; opening the narrow door the wind nearly ripped it off its hinges.

For a modern experience we visited Swaffham in Norfolk. We went there some years ago and looking it up brought back happy memories, but when I reached the end of the article a note had been added to say it was permanently closed! Here is what we saw and what you will miss…

‘The Swaffham wind turbine, located at the Green Britain Centre, is the UK’s first megawatt-class wind turbine and offers a unique opportunity for visitors to climb to its viewing platform. It was built in 1999 and stands at a height of 67 meters, with rotor blades measuring 66 meters in diameter. It has a power capacity of 1.5 megawatts (MW). The turbine is notable for being the only one in the UK that allows public access to its viewing platform, which is located just below the generator. Visitors can climb 305 steps to reach the top, where they can enjoy panoramic views of the surrounding Norfolk countryside. The climb provides a unique perspective on wind energy production and the scale of the turbine itself.’ 

It was a unique experience. Safely behind presumably strong glass we watched the blades gracefully glide past.

I don’t have to go on holiday to find ancient steps. Here is the familiar Christchurch castle and nearby at the Priory are hidden steps leading to St. Michael’s Loft Museum.

You find a little door and go up one side, then sensibly go down the stairs at the other side. We visited once years ago, then the door seemed to disappear… but I found it again last year. If you want to visit, check the website for opening hours.

https://www.christchurchpriory.org/fabric-history/st-michaels-loft-museum

What Iconic steps have you climbed? If you don’t like steps, can they be avoided?

You can go up the Eiffel Tower by lift.

A bus takes you to the cliff top where Whitby Abbey is.

You can just drive up to the historic part of Lincoln. When we were at the castle last year there was a lift operating, not that we used it! BUT looking up their website, maintenance means access to the wall is by the spiral stairs only.

Tuesday Tiny Tale – Florida Quay

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Florida Key stood on the quay and gazed across the river with pride. He had just taken over the ferry that crossed the river. His family had worked the crossing for generations, centuries perhaps, since the days of rowing over a few locals in a fishing boat. The Key family still held the licence, proud of their professional and safe record for the one minute crossing.

Though the crossing was short, skill was still involved, taking the tide into account, heading downstream before swinging round to tie up at the little wooden jetty. Florida could steer close enough for passengers to disembark without mooring, but passengers liked the security of seeing a rope thrown over the wooden post.

Mr and Mrs Key had thought it amusing to name their first born Florida after conceiving him on a memorable holiday in Florida Keys. Now he decided to use this to his advantage in rebranding and upgrading the ferry experience. He erected bright new signage FLORIDA QUAYS on both river banks. After a torrential downpour the nature reserve side of the river acquired a few ponds and swampy areas which gave him an idea. He acquired some model alligators to hide in the water and the undergrowth, they attracted more attention when he ordered some body parts from Amazon. Children gasped in fright when they spotted a hand or foot sticking out of an alligator’s jaws.

Florida’s next idea was heritage ferry crossings. A new display board, on the town side of the river, displayed digitalised blown up images from the tiny black and white photos in the family album of ancestors rowing humble wooden boats. Florida would row people across while his sister captained the motor boat. He had never rowed a boat before, but how hard could it be, people rowed up and down the river all the time, all he had to do was row across it. With his mates’ help they hauled a rowing boat out of the old boat house.

If the crossings were a success, he might do short pleasure trips down the river to the beach beside the narrow channel where sea worthy boats made their way out. The larger ferries that took passengers up and down the river were owned by a rival company.

The first couple of crossings went well on an incoming tide. The passengers enjoyed the occasional splash from the oars, which made the experience more realistic and several said it was a shame the trip was so short, though it was slower and longer than the motorboat.

In the afternoon a strong wind had blown up and the tide was outgoing. His sister suggested they just stick with the motor boat, but children waiting on the town quay were eager to get to the other side to see the alligators and to get splashed in the rowing boat.

As Florida rowed out there was more of a drag on the oars and the wooden jetty looked further away than usual.

‘Are we going on an adventure?’ squealed one excited boy.

‘No, not today, we’re going to swing round and head for the jetty now.’

But somehow Florida could not turn the boat and the further they drifted downstream the more he forgot which way you did the oars to turn round. When they swept round the bend and the beach hove into view, Florida had an idea, or rather a desperate plan. He just needed to run aground on the sand before reaching the sign on the beach that warned against swimming because of the fast currents in the channel.

‘Okay, we’ll have a little adventure and land on the beach.’

The children cheered while a mother felt under the narrow seat for non existent life jackets and an uncle started tapping into his phone with the vague memory that 999 could also summon the coastguard.

The river current became stronger and took Florida by surprise. His efforts to hang onto the right oar caused him to wrench the ageing oarlock off.

The uncle was unused to making 999 calls and the stress of wondering if they might also need police, fire brigade and ambulance caused him to get confused as to their location. The operator wanted more information than ‘in a boat’ – they were on holiday, so it was not surprising he had no idea what the river was called. The operator thus had no idea that there was an RNLI inshore lifeboat station a short distance away. Fortunately they were doing an exercise and could not avoid noticing an old wooden boat being swept along the channel and out to sea.

When Florida’s sister returned from getting a takeaway coffee, she was surprised to see the motorboat still moored and no sign of her brother or the rowing boat. She wondered if it was wasting the time of the emergency services to dial 999.

When the lifeboat landed all the passengers at the life boat station there was great excitement among the children.

‘Can we go round again, that was fun.’

Florida wondered if it would be okay to ask if they could go back out and rescue his rowing boat, but before he could ask, the coxswain beckoned him into a small, but impressive coms room.

‘Now Sir, I am obliged to offer you some seafaring advice, which I shall do while we wait for the police to arrive.’

The Ebbing Tide

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Tides are a fascinating phenomena. I first became aware of them when I was eight and we had a fortnight’s holiday in a converted train carriage in Wittering, West Sussex. Mum and Dad obtained a tide timetable so we could visit the beach at low tide when the sand ( sand flats perhaps a better description ) appeared and we were safe in the shallow water. My parents sat on the beach with a rug over their knees and no intention of going in the water. At high tide we abandoned the pebble beach for cultural pursuits such as visiting Chichester Cathedral. Staying for a fortnight illustrated the fact that times of the tides changed slightly every day, for reasons I still don’t understand, but the Moon is involved. So a  typical holiday agenda would be beach in the morning first week and by second week, beach in the afternoon.

Tides are at their most interesting when islands are involved, islands close enough to walk to at low tide, with the additional excitement of perhaps being stranded or washed away on the incoming tide. At Saint Michael’s Mount in Cornwall you can walk across a stone causeway or have a boat ride at high tide. By the time you have finished exploring the little rocky island the tide will probably have turned and you will return by the opposite method to your arrival. The Saint Aubyn family still live here and manage it with the National Trust. On arrival you can follow a steep path winding up to the castle. The harbour village has a shop and café. This is my favourite island, what fun to enjoy living on an island, while still being able to pop over to the mainland for your shopping. I love the sub tropical terraced gardens and the castle is very homely, just the sort of little castle I would like to own.

https://stmichaelsmount.co.uk/

We have also been to the mother ship, I mean monastery, Mont Saint Michel in Normandy, France. This island is on a larger scale, full of restaurants and tourists. You can walk all round the island at low tide and there are lots of photo opportunities. In more recent times no cars go over the causeway. There is a visitor centre with car park and a free shuttle bus across the causeway, or you can take a horse and carriage or walk. The tides vary greatly, at roughly 14 metres (46 ft) between highest and lowest water.

If you have ever travelled on the east coast railway line to Edinburgh you will have been treated to views of Durham Cathedral high above and the Newcastle bridges, but also you can look across shimmering seas to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. I instantly wanted to go there and we finally made it on a Northumberland holiday which included other great sights such as… you will have to wait for another day to find out.

The island has a causeway which you can drive across, though you leave you car in the car park to enjoy the peace of the island. Saint Aiden came from the holy Island of Iona on the west coast of Scotland to found an abbey.

When we visited, a bride was being driven across in a carriage pulled by black horses, she was being married at the castle. We wondered if the wedding guests would all get off the island again before high tide.

‘Warning signs urge visitors walking to the island to keep to the marked path, to check tide times and weather carefully.  For drivers, tide tables are prominently displayed at both ends of the causeway The causeway is generally open from about three hours after high tide until two hours before the next high tide. Despite these warnings, about one vehicle each month is stranded on the causeway, requiring rescue by HM Coastguard and / or the Seahouses RNLI lifeboat.’

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/north-east/lindisfarne-castle

Tidal fun doesn’t have to involve an island. We once had a holiday on Grange-over-Sands railway station, Cumbria. The working station also had part of the  building converted to a cottage, it was surreal hearing trains go through in the middle of the night. Grange-over-Grass might be a more appropriate name as at low tide sheep were put out to graze, then sheepdogs rounded them up before the incoming tide. The station looked out over the vast stretch of Morecambe Bay. I have looked this up and can’t find holiday accommodation listed for the station or any mention of sheep. Did I imagine the whole thing?

You can walk across the bay at low tide, it’s a long way and the Morecambe Bay sands are renowned for their quick sands and fast flowing tides. Crossing the sands has always been dangerous. The King’s Guide to the Sands is the royally appointed guide to crossing the sands.

We did not try that.

What is your favourite island and more interestingly, have you ever been stranded on one?

Thursday Train Tales

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 25 Comments

You can read previous train tales here.

Tuesday Train Tales

Be careful what you say, the gods are always listening.

‘Don’t come out again in this awful weather, I don’t need a lift, it’s much quicker on the train.’

It is March 2020, we are about to go into lockdown, but at Southampton Hospital it’s like entering a busy airport terminal with shops and a huge Costa Coffee and other eateries. The only precautions against the new ‘Corona Virus’ are instructions to use hand gel. We and I have been visiting my husband every day.

Now, on a miserable wet late afternoon I manage to find the right bus to the station and saunter in looking around for a window with a human being behind it, so I don’t have to bother with a ticket machine. An androgenous person in a uniform approaches, I wasn’t expecting a welcome party.

‘Can I help you?’

‘I just want a single to Bournemouth.’

‘There are no trains to Bournemouth.’

‘WHAT!’

‘Tree on the line.’

‘So when might there be a train?’

‘Not sure, do you still want to go to Bournemouth?’

‘YES.’

Luckily the platform west has a café and waiting area, now full of grumpy commuters. I am not there long when there is a sudden exodus to the exit, I follow them as they all pile onto a double decker bus, asking if it’s going to Bournemouth. No one actually says no so I rush upstairs and grab the last seat. It is dark and still raining, the windows immediately mist up. If this ‘Corona Virus’ really is so infectious, this is when I’m going to catch it.

I can’t see a thing, no idea where we are, but presumably on the motorway. After a good hour the lights of Bournemouth appear. The train journey takes only 28 minutes if you get a fast train, a fast train being one that mainly stops where I want to go.

There are many good reasons for going by train, keeping traffic off the roads, enjoying a faster smooth journey, looking at the scenery and into people’s back gardens… and of course people watching and eavesdropping.

Autumn 2024 and we are leaving the Isle of Wight. Our lovely little B&B is only minutes from the ferry. This time we have looked on line to check if the trains are running smoothly. They aren’t, it’s Sunday engineering works.

At Lymington we disembark and have plenty of time to file out to the car park and get on a comfortable replacement bus which leaves at exactly the same time as the train would have done. We enjoy a pleasant ride.

At Brockenhurst all was not going well. Confused people were hanging around outside the station waiting their turn to consult a chap with a clipboard and a phone. His jacket says ‘Bus Replacement Service Director’ or some such words. Also ‘on duty’ was a fed up South West Trains chap who wandered off at intervals and returned to make remarks such as ‘Don’t travel on a Sunday, I don’t know what they’re playing at’ and ‘Tell your friends Not to travel next Sunday.’ A young woman in a light blue tabard was trying to be helpful. These light blue people don’t seem to actually belong to the railways; at Bournemouth I had wondered if they were students on work experience as they were very young. I think they might be employed to pass on information, give stress counselling and to take the pressure off other staff.

In the meantime the Replacement Director was doing a grand job in an impossible situation with passengers going in different directions and not enough buses. He promised he would get us taxis if there were not enough bus seats. At one stage a coach turned up already full, turned round in the car park and looked like it was going straight back out again. The Director suddenly grabbed an elderly lady by the arm, frog marched her over to the coach and returned empty handed to address the crowd.

‘I know you’re all going to hate me, but that lady was traveling alone and had been waiting a while to get to Southampton, so I took an executive decision to put her in the only empty seat.’

We couldn’t argue with that and nobody did. We gradually herded ourselves into groups according to destination. A few taxis turned up and some left as The Director remembered who had been waiting longest. In the meantime more passengers drifted in or were dropped off by loved ones expecting to say farewell to them.

A black van with no windows turned up and our Bournemouth group was summoned forward, surely we were not going to be piled in the back of a van like prisoners? It turned out to be a luxury mini bus with tinted windows and curtains. There then followed a tour of the whole of the New Forest as we visited every tiny rural station and halt, seemingly only accessed by narrow winding lanes. At each one we dropped off or picked up someone. It was more than an hour before we arrived at Bournemouth station. The train journey takes 26 minutes. We got home safely, but had not even glimpsed a train all day, let alone been on one.

Did I venture on to a train ever again? Yes, but that’s for another episode…

Have you had any interesting journeys lately?

Tuesday Train Tales

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Be careful what you say, the gods are listening.

‘Once we get to Waterloo we’re on the home run, we can relax and have lunch.’

How many times have I stood looking at the large departures board at London Waterloo? Generations of my family commuted up to Waterloo along with hordes of fellow office workers long before working from home was thought of. The last London terminus to have steam trains, they were still running when we lived in Farnborough in the early sixties. Nothing can ever beat sitting in a train as it builds up steam and leaves the station and what fun being totally enveloped in smoke as you walk to school over the railway bridge.

Now as I stared up at the board to check train times before we sauntered off to find lunch, I wondered if it was the board or my brain that had become jumbled up. Nothing made sense, though the words cancelled and delayed seemed to feature rather a lot. I suggested we go to the information desk.

‘When is the next train for Bournemouth?’

‘No idea what’s going on, signal failure at Winchester, you best get straight on the next train.’

‘Have we got time?’

A bloke standing beside us said ‘Don’t worry, you’ve got time, I’m the driver.’

We got on the South West train and off we went, but at Southampton we stopped and didn’t start again. We sat there for a while, chatting to someone who had just flown into the country to go and see her dying sister in Bournemouth hospital. We were apparently waiting for a driver – after rail mishaps to come we soon learned that any rail problems result in drivers everywhere being in the wrong place. Each message over the Tannoy contradicted the previous one. We were told this train was terminating and we all got off. At least we could have a comfort break. Train toilets are a subject for another time, preferably when you’re not eating your dinner. Then a message of hope for some of us, the next train was for Bournemouth only, hurrah. It was a ‘Cross Country’ not conjured up especially for us, just happened to be passing through on its normal route. And what of the other poor souls who needed to go to the other stations along the way? I don’t know.

When my sister came over from Australia for a long holiday I had suggested a trip by train and ferry to the Isle of Wight as it is pleasant and easy, all went well when I did the same trip last year with my friend. Bournemouth to Brockenhurst in the New Forest, change to the dear little train that just goes back and forth to Lymington Pier then saunter on to the ferry to Yarmouth, Isle of Wight. We had booked three nights at a B&B yards from the little ferry terminal.

At Bournemouth station that morning all was chaos, car on the level crossing at Brockenhurst, how long does it take to tow a car off a railway line? All day perhaps judging by what lay ahead. The platform was full of staff, they didn’t know what was going on, but they were doing their best to keep up our morale or their own. Then a train appeared, we got on with our wheelie cases, found a seat then heard the announcement ‘This train is for Southampton only.’ We got off again.

A train did come along and we arrived at Brockenhurst where the platform was full of confused passengers wanting to go up to London or down to Weymouth. We went over to the empty platform to check if the train sitting there was for Lymington, it was and we jumped on quickly, but it didn’t move. It was waiting for a driver. We sat and sat, no more messages came.

Then thinking outside of the box I suggested we just get off the train, trek back over the bridge to the information office and ask what was going on. They had no idea and I proposed Plan B, just walk out of the station and get a taxi to Lymington Pier. Another passenger had already found one and was happy to share. I am still not convinced that this was a genuine taxi, I could see no evidence and the driver wanted cash only, £18. The other passenger was a local who needed to get back to his house in Lymington and I offered him a free ride, just glad that I always carry real money. He insisted on giving me a ten pound note, so we had made a bit of a profit. Whether or not it was a genuine taxi, he did take us to the right place. We relaxed at the little coffee shop in the tiny terminal while we waited for the ferry. The ferry is a delight, you just saunter up the gangway in minutes, climb a few stairs and sit in comfort at the front soothed by the smooth journey across the Solent.

You will have to wait to find out if we ever returned home from that trip, but if I mention we had to come back on a Sunday, some of you might guess.

Monday Madness – Holiday Highlights

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Since early September I have often been AWOL from WeirdPress with assorted family staying and going on trips. Fortunately my sister is also a writer and always comes to my writers’ group when she stays, so we both did some writing. I took plenty of photos in strange places and we met plenty of weird people, so plenty of blogger fodder. In the meantime here are a few highlights. Can you guess where we might have been?

Tuesday Tiny Tale 300 – Phone Call

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Hello Mum.

Felicity?

Yes, who else would it be, why didn’t you answer before?

When?

Half an hour ago and several times before that.

I did get some caller unknown calls so of course I ignored them. I only answered this time accidentally. Why aren’t you calling from your phone?

Because I lost my phone, didn’t you get my text messages?

Was that really you, I thought it was one of those scams, I’m not daft. I’m certainly not going to be like those old people on You and Yours who lose all their money.

I wasn’t asking you for any money.

Good, because I’m certainly not sending any money to Morrocco. So are you enjoying your holiday?

I was till I Iost my phone.

Where did you lose it?

If I knew that I would probably have found it by now.

Where are you calling from?

I’m borrowing someone else’s phone so I can’t be long.

Whose?

A new friend.

Where’s Caroline?

Gone off on a trip with some bloke.

What, so you’re all on your own?

Mother, I’m 39, you don’t have to worry about me.

I obviously do if you’ve managed to lose your phone.

I just need you to go on line and get hold of my bank.

Can’t you phone them?

No, all that security stuff is on my phone.

I told you it’s not safe to do all your banking on your phone. How am I going to contact your bank, they closed my branch.

You just go on line.

But I don’t do on line banking for myself, let alone for anyone else and they would be suspicious. Come to think of it, how do I know this is you?

Of course it’s me, I’m your daughter.

But it could be one of those AI thingys cloning your voice…

Thursday Thoughts

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The monthly coffee morning at our little local library is different each time. We never know who might turn up, how many or what we might be doing. Could be a talk, a quiz, scrabble on the table…. This morning there were some new faces including a small, lively elderly lady with a large son. She told us he was an autistic savant and asked which of us knew the day of the week we were born, but don’t say it out loud. Then we each told him our date of birth and he got the day right every time.

How? Was it memory or a mathematical formula. With 52 weeks in a year plus one day, we know our days move by one each year, except for leap years… It only took him a few moments to come up with his answers. I have to admit that one lady gave her daughter’s birth date and he said Tuesday, she said it wasn’t. Asked again he said Tuesday. I asked her what time of day and she said noon, which precluded a date vagueness around midnight… She was a new person we didn’t know; was she telling the truth, perhaps she misremembered…

He also remembered the football match results for any date you named, but unless you are a football fan that is not so interesting. His mother said unfortunately he couldn’t predict future results, only remember past, so winning the football pools was just a dream. Finally she said ‘Okay, he’s done his party trick we’re off now.’ And off he went with his eight library books.

Most of us, if we fly from a busy airport, probably don’t know the make, model and safety record of the plane we are going on. We don’t even see what it looks like on the outside. Perhaps there are apps and websites to go on, I haven’t flown for years so don’t ask me. I certainly know that members of my extended family have flown safely over most continents. If you had access to information that your type of plane often had lose bolts, just like the one whose panel and window fell / was sucked out, at least you could make an informed choice.

Also having a lucky escape were the passengers on the Japanese plane colliding on landing with a small plane which sadly wasn’t so lucky. Do you have trouble finding, doing up and undoing your seat belt when someone offers you a lift in a car you are unfamiliar with? That would be me on the Japanese plane. With my dyspraxic hands I would never get undone in ninety seconds let alone get out, down the chute, film what was happening on my phone and manage not to drop the phone on the way out. Find out the names of the cabin crew and book them for your next flight, they got everyone out safely.

Have you been to a cat café? My Aussie relatives have been on a mega Euro holiday. Having been on husky sleds and met the real Father Christmas, going to a cat café in London was one of the last treats for my great niece. Her aunty booked a table for afternoon tea and it cost £lots, but as cat lovers it was worth it apparently. Coincidentally I had just been down an internet rabbit hole to see what happened to the kitten that didn’t stop growing. Disappointingly it did not turn out to be an albino lion and eat the owner, but an affectionate very large Maine Coon. So I recognised the rather scary, very fluffy cat investigating their scones in the picture that appeared on my phone. Apparently it was not fully grown yet. I think I would rather eat my afternoon tea without a big fluffy cat on the table. At home the relatives’ cats are not allowed out; letting your cat kill the native birds and marsupials of Western Australia is frowned upon.

Ironically they were astonished how many eateries and pubs in England allow dogs in. I guess we have no need for ‘puppy cafes’ as our cafes are already full of dogs.

Have you been on a scary flight?

What is the strangest café you have been in?