You've got to laugh

Out on my permitted walk yesterday, I saw a woman dusting her garage door. I fear for her sanity. 

The trouble is, if she's already bored enough to being doing that, how will she cope in, say, a month's time? 

I look forward to passing her again in due course and catching her cutting the lawn with nail scissors.

How long would four slices of ham last you?

It occurred to me this morning as I was spreading butter on my toast that I might be a bit greedy when it comes to dairy goodies. You should see me with a block of Cheddar: not pretty.

For reasons that I don't remember, I have an old food coupon book in a folder labelled 'Important Odds & Sods' - see pic - so I dug it out and looked up Second World War rations online. Good lord - how did anyone survive?

From the Imperial War Museums website, I learned that every citizen was issued with a booklet to take to a registered shopkeeper to receive supplies. At first, only bacon, butter and sugar were rationed, but gradually, the list grew: meat was rationed from 11 March 1940; cooking fats in July 1940, as was tea; and cheese and preserves joined in March and May 1941.

Allowances fluctuated throughout the war, but on average one adult’s weekly ration was 113g bacon and ham (about 4 thin slices), one shilling and ten pence worth of meat (about 227g minced beef), 57g butter, 57g cheese, 113g margarine, 113g cooking fat, 3 pints of milk, 227g sugar (that's the same as the meat ration!), 57g tea and 1 egg. Other foods such as canned meat, fish, rice, condensed milk, breakfast cereals, biscuits and vegetables were available, but in limited quantities on a points system.

Fresh vegetables and fruit were not rationed, but supplies were limited. Some types of imported fruit all but disappeared. Lemons and bananas became unobtainable for most of the war; oranges continued to be sold but greengrocers customarily reserved them for children and pregnant women, who could prove their status by producing their distinctive ration books.

I also learned that apparently 60% of Britons told government pollsters they wanted rationing to be introduced, with many believing that it would guarantee everyone a fair share of food. I'll just leave that there for you to consider.

Chilling memories

One of the tasks I undertake for the monthly journal of a professional institute is to sub a list of people who have been members of the organisation for 20, 30, 40 and 50 years or more. Those who have been a member for 20 years joined in 2000. This can't be right, because surely the Seventies are only 30 years away.

The Seventies are on my mind at the moment because I've been invited to a school reunion, which has thrown up all sorts of questions, not least whether or not to take Mr T with me. He won't know many people and he didn't know me when I was at school, so, as one of my friends has put it, it's really none of his business. Do I want him chatting with exes and people I had petty squabbles with?

I've kept in touch with a handful of people I went to school with, but while I have a passing interesting in some of the others and occasionally hear news of them, I wonder if there's a reason we're not in regular contact. I mean, teenage girls: they be bitches!

And we are being 'strongly encouraged' to wear Seventies clothing. Oh heck.

I've also been delving back even further, to my time at primary school. I have a piece in the current issue of Best of British about swiming lessons at my home town's outdoor lido, when it was so cold I actually shivered myself to the floor of the changing cubicle. Different times!

A mystery

If you follow me on Face Book, you might have noticed that I arrived home to a bit of a mystery. It has unfolded thus.

While I was away last week, Mr T signed for a letter addressed to me. The next day, the postman knocked at the door to check that it was actually for me. Mr T confirmed that, yes, it had my name on it and the address and postcode were ours (although there was a spelling mistake in the road name, which often happens).

Apparently, someone at the other end of our very long road had been expecting a 'shoebox-sized parcel with unspecified contents' and had been given the tracking number that had been used on my letter. The two of them concluded that someone must have typed in a wrong digit somewhere.

When I returned home, I was intrigued because I wasn't expecting anything and there was no return address on the back of the envelope. What could it be?

Well, dear reader, inside was an advertising leaflet for a gutter-cleaning company. That was it;  nothing written on the back, no note, nothing. I've never heard of the company and I don't need my soffits sprucing. That's odd, right?

Yesterday, a post office official turned up on the doorstep. The people down the road are quite rightly agitated that their parcel has gone astray and that 'someone' has signed for it. The PO chap took away the envelope and its contents to use in evidence.

Two questions remain:

1. Where is the mystery parcel (and supplementary question, what's inside)?
2. Who on earth would go to the trouble of sending me an unsolicited leaflet by recorded delivery?

Meet Danny

There is a new man in my life. His name is Danny and we met last week while I was away on a writing retreat. I wasn't expecting this to happen - no one ever does - but there he was, waiting for me to find him.

He is 26 and he needs my help. Given that I created the predicament in which he finds himself, it is only fair that I take responsibility for putting things right. Indeed, I have no choice but to grapple with the how-abouts and what-ifs.

This is the role of the writer. Danny is a fictional character I created during my week away at Foxes' Retreat.

Oh, wait: you didn't think...?

Encouraging youngsters to fall in love with reading

Photo: Rachel Campling

I have a guest post today from writer and advocate for the joy of reading Rachel Campling. She says:

I am a specialist primary school teacher who works with pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds at Harpole Primary School in Northamptonshire. Unfortunately, some of these pupils did not have a single book at home, other than their school reading book. With the closure of so many libraries, having easy access to free books wasn’t a viable option for them. As an avid reader and writer of children’s fiction, this really upset me. How were they to enjoy escaping into other worlds without access to great books? So, my colleague and I hatched an exciting plan.

We appealed to all the parents of pupils at the school for books that they’d finished with to be donated to us, and happily they came flooding in. This enabled us to set up the Book Swap Shop.

At the beginning of the year every child in the school is given a book. This can be swapped for a different book once they have read it or kept forever if they love it so much. The shop is open every Wednesday lunchtime and the children flock to the bookstand and rifle through the boxes to find their next treasure. They can choose any book they fancy. There is always a buzz of excited chatter as the children recommend books to each other or search for another book by the same author to devour.

The shop itself is run by the pupils I work with, the Book Swap Shop Reading Champions. They organise the books, tick off pupils’ names as they swap books, stamp new stock with a star to show that it’s from our shop, and help other pupils to choose books. This has really helped to raise their self-esteem.

This venture has not only helped our pupils to get their hands on a whole variety of wonderful adventures and factual texts, but it has also generated a love of reading for pleasure throughout the whole school. 

I think this is a fantastic idea. How about you? Are you inspired by Rachel to  try something similar - or are you already? Let us know.

Shine a little light

I'm looking for a floor lamp that I can direct downwards on to my book when I'm reclining on the sofa. I had one, but after years of shining a light on dark stories, it blew its last bulb and has gone to its final resting place. The trouble is I don't want a cheap one, but can't afford an expensive one. I did find one I really liked, but it was £185, which is a bit out of my league. OK, completely out of my league.

Today, I decided I'd had enough of squinting in the gloom and persuaded Mr T to accompany me to B&Q to see what was on offer there. They had one that we decided would do, at a pinch. The next challenge was finding the right light bulb. Why can't they just give you one with the lamp?

We made a note of the spec of the bulb from the label attached to the lamp and went to the next aisle to locate an E14 screw fitting max 28W thingy. Inevitably there were hundreds of bulbs to choose from, but none fitting our criteria. We were forced to seek out a member of staff for guidance; let's call her Doris.

However, before surrendering to her tender mercies, we did what seemed perfectly sensible to us: we removed the bulb from the display lamp and took it with us for ease of comparison. When Doris discovered what we'd done, she fair near fainted away on the spot. Oh the horror! Did we have no respect for Health And Safety? One step away from reaching for the sal volatile, we calmed her down and she was able to find us what we sought. We bought the lamp and went home.

Forty minutes later we were back in the shop, returning the damn thing. The three screws needed to hold together the segments of the upright were missing. We could have resolved this; Mr T has an array of boxes and tins filled with fixings for just such occasions. However, the actual light fitting - the cone containing the bulb - just kept flopping down, such that if I wanted to be illuminated by it I would have to sit on the floor.

As the shadows draw in this evening, you will find me in a easy chair curled up with Lionel Shriver. I shall be wearing a head torch.