Digigran

In line with my plan ( see previous BLOG) . I got up yesterday and went to the village shop to begin a casual conversation about hens and poultry keeping in general, referring to any articles in newspapers about impending approach of Avian Flu, which are currently spread across most front pages. Edward was tied up outside to prevent any one running away at any hint of their complicity in the aviacides. But I was thwarted in this cunning little plan by the sudden imcapacity of the shop assistant, who, in turning to use the till, strained her back and became frozen in situ. This coincided with the morning rush for papers and the arrival of a documentary team, headed by an American, who were all staying in the village and looking for supplies for the cook!

Had to abaandon any hopes of a pleasant little detective foray in order to takeover at the till whilst the people we met at dinner the night before held fort in the back of the shop and helped the injured lady home.

Now, who said village life was dull! Cheered myself up last night, by watching first episode of Inspector Morse , The Dead of Jericho, to try to pick up tips on detective work. Not much help there though. Seemed a bit hit and miss. Have a character in the village who looks like Patrick Troughton but that's not really good enough, is it?

Will keep you posted. ( Ah, Ah - new meaning for old message)

Well, you might well ask about the prevalence of murder in the small villages of England, as relayed in multiplicity of crime novels and TV series such as Midsomer Murders . (Skip all the blurb on the murder link and take a look at the picture story following it - now that could only have been done by someone in a small village- in fact the scene featuring the 'Rook and his little book' could be located in our village, though it is ravens, rather than rooks that wheel above our roof). A love of murder goes hand in hand with a comparable prediliction for small domestic aimals, so that many of our fellow villagers keep poultry or goats or pet sheep, rather as our friends in town have cats or gerbils and dogs. But to begin at the beginning before I get to the cock and bull of the story.
We have a cottage in a lovely Derbyshire village where we spend at least three days of the week to write and walk and, of course, mark. Here is a picture, the view from our cottage windows, taken after an early fall of snow. Village life is part of the digigran plan for digibaby who I hope will join us here from time to time when old enough to escape from the 'sick hurry' of urban life. We have been here for three years now, gradually making the cottage more comfortabe and getting to know neighbours.
Last night, we went to supper with people who have lived here for sometime and began to hear about the dark underside of the village.
First some villagers had conducted a concerted campaign to keep out a woman fron the curacy;
second there is a member of an important Derbyshire business family who boasted in the pub of never paying bills;
thirdly the stand-in vicar's dog bit the flying bishop, sent in to sort the curate problem;
but fourthly, and most shocking, someone is poisoning the village hens.
Our fellow guests at the supper party had found their hens looking decidedly poorly. Apparently hens are real little drama queens and let you know immediately by their body language when all is not well. Their hens began to lose their feathers and one died. Suspect grain of a virulent orange colour was found scattered in the yard. Now digidoc knows all about hens and feathers and chemical exfoliants. He said there was a poison, which made b oth birds' feathers and people's hair fall out. He also suggested that agent orange might be involved as it is an organophosphate found in acgricultural pesticides and available to farmers.
My ears pricked up and I began to feel like Geraldine Mc Ewan, on the case. These are the theories I am following up.
Suspect may be someone in the village who hates poultry because of fear of avian flu (H5N) perhaps-action- begin a discussion in village shop may give me a clue here.
Perhaps even a very close neighbour who dislikes clucking and scratching noises and fears introduction of a cockerel to the flock-enquire about difficult neighbours in pub, very casually.

Someone who has same knowledge as digidoc of poisons - find out about medical men or chemists in the village

Someone from the competition- commercial poultry owners fighting to keep hold of market (not very likely as most farmers near hear are keeping sheep or cows). No action as yet.

Holiday makers with duff stuff, feeding chickens for fun- again unlikely but I am going for 5,as I always advise boys to do when conducting thought showers in class. Keep eyes peeled for small children with bird seed.

So that's my new project and I shall be down at the village shop today with Edward, on the case- just as soon as I've done the marking.

Interview

The ladies men admire, I've heard,
Would shudder at a wicked
word.
Their candle gives a single light,
They'd rather stay home at
night.
They do not keep awake till 3,
Nor read erotic poetry.
They
never sanction the impure,
Nor recognize an overture.
They shrink from
powder and from paints...

So far, I've had no complaints.

Alexander is settling in well at nursery and though his mum is feeling very, very tired and has to get up at unearthly hours to get to her job, she seems well content with arrangements.




I think because he is so young he is getting lots of extra attention and cuddles and of course his mum gets to see him during the day too. He is not featured in this picture but I can assure you he is getting lovelier by the minute, I get updates on my mobile of him smiling. I am therefore saving up all my cuddles in one big hug for the next time we meet. I am a bit sad because I cannot visit him so often, but then this gives me more time to BLOG and actually get down to doing some work. Despite being part-time I find academic life as always all absorbing and have also planned a granny day out. I am off to Blackburn, braving Lancashire and a train change in Manchester to see this.

I braved our local railway station and got myself a SNR Railcard ( note the discrete use of abbreviation). It did take up an hour of my time but I got a first class ticket to London at peak time for £19!!!!!! and my trip to Blackburn cost £33 what larks, eh. Now here's a ruse for my much younger friends . The silly girl behind the screen did not look at the passport, driving licence or birth cert. I had with me but just stamped my form and gave me the card. It cost £20 and I reckon I have already saved £50. So leave off make-up, borrow grey wig and frumpy clothes like this and get a card! You too can join me on artytrips up North. Any tips Kate on local phrases to use, or customs to observe? Can't keep saying "EEH BY GUM!" now can I?

Also can ponder my wardrobe and wonder whether it was a shirt dress, Kate recommended or the shift dress (looks a bit fattening) suggested in the Guardian's fashion advice, she meant. Oh dear, so many choices.
Just checked out at Joolz's posting for today and realised I perhaps ought to give more attention to
Digidoc- so I'll be nipping off to Tesco's and god knows when I'll get t'marking done- again.

Will begin with prams- as I promised last time as this BLOG seems to keep veering off the granny stuff. Modern prams look brilliant. They have names like Elite, Mountain Buggy, Twin Sport and Expedition. I think this is a ploy to get their dads to buy them and push the baby to the park while mum gets a bit of peace. I can tell you now it won't work. My sons took an interest in my new carpet sweeper when they found out it was called a turbo something- but soon lost interest when it merely had to be pushed. Nice try though.

But they are not as easy to push as they were when my sons were babies (I bet all the digigrans say that these days). Theyare big, clumsy and heavy and hard to get up steep hills and there are so many of those in Sheffield (DID YOU KNOW SHEFFIELDERS SAY THAT SHEFFIELD WAS BUILT ON SEVEN HILLS- JUST LIKE ROME?)
Anyway most young mums don't call their baby vehicles prams now, new names for them are buggies or strollers or even travel systems (sic).
However some mums do seem to have all the bother I had when proudly pushing Alexander up one of the steepest hills in Sheffield SEE .
The other problem , beside the pram itself and cars that try to run over you and the baby just as you are easing across a road, are other people on the pavements- they walk at you and what are you supposed to do? Me, I speed up and drive straight at them and so they have to step off the pavement and not hit me. Watch out Joolz if you go strolling in the vicinity, doing deep thoughts when I am on pram patrol we may well collide.

About the new names for prams. As I am semi-retired, I often work at home now and listen to radio 4. I like human speaking voices when I am working , not music which distracts me. Have you ever heard Ring Around the Bath? I guess most of you are too busy blogging or researching or doing the bloody emails to pay attention and it is indeed very trivial -Well one of the daughters of this sit-com is having a baby and her brother' s girlfriend, Xanthe, gave a list of things you only say when you are dealing with babies, like nappies, matinee jacket, basinette, rompers, bootees etc. I think strollers and buggies are almost in this category too, though I can think of other uses for those words . It is sad that Sheffield hills get so bad a press though as in the above student comment:

Sheffield is not a particularly pretty place. Tourists would not find much
within the city itself that is pleasing to the camera lens. The countryside
nearby more than makes up for this though. The weather is another problem. It
does seem to rain a lot in that part of the world. And it gets quite chilly too.
In the surrounding countryside, mist can be a problem. It doesn't matter how
beautiful the scenery is if you can't see your hand in front of your face
because of the fog.
Another feature of Sheffield is the hills. Sheffield, like Rome, is built on seven hills. These hills were formed by the six rivers of Sheffield (told you)
The main shopping streets in the city centre are fairly flat, but head out in
any direction and you'll soon find yourself going uphill. The advantage to this
is that it makes for some great views over the city. The disadvantage becomes
evident when you are struggling up these hills with your shopping.

because walking up them keeps you fit and they guarantee, as is grudgingly admitted here, that wherever you are in Sheffield you can look up and out over roofs to somewhere green to head for.
Well enough of the grannying moans.
Have a look at Dr Rob's new post. Prompted by me he's written a very snazzy poem- though it does share something of the nature of lists .

Picture of Bloom , drawn by JJ.

Thinking of how to begin, and as usual, a bit guillty about not blogging for a while, I idly scanned a few random BLOGs and became really irritated by the quantities of lists on offer Here are a few examples of the genre:

Places I'd rather be,

Dogs I've owned,

X ways of enjoying the weekend,

Famouspeople I have met,

Unusual jobs I've done,

Top ten wardrobe items etc, etc.

Is this the death of prose as we know it? Perhaps I am just a crusty old gran stuck in a time-warp with my vinyl mentality, paper-back novels and l Letts diary style of writing.

Lists seem to me to be at the very Blagging end of Blogging. They cry out, ' Look at me ! Oh look at all the things I've got, done, seen, know etc, etc. 'Well, the irritation with the list thing was compounded by this report in the Guardian, which reported on well-known writers' list of the books kids should read before leaving school. The headline-grabbers were those of the two Laureates- the Poet Laureate and the Children's Laureate. Such rubbish. Of course English teachers would want to claim to have read Ulysses but not taught it in school. I have added a link to a quick summary just in case any of you want to check it out for Monday morning or remind yourself of its sections. This is an even shorter, jollier version. Go on have a look; it's animated.

My own favourite of Joyce's writing for school however, is Dubliners andI might risk sharing a story or two with an older class; perhaps The Dead, especially as John Hustom made it in to a wonderful film, with Angelica Huston portraying magnificently, the wife haunted by memories of a lost love and with falling snow a poignant image of the state of the West of Ireland . Anyway, see how easy it is to get into competing choices\ personal lists . (Hear me cry, "Look, look how well-read I am.") and think of the utter foolishness of thinking that adults, however famous, should try to prescribe and reify what children and young people should read and enjoy. And how resistant the establishment is to change to its literary canon. Ignoring children's interests is a sure way to turn readers off for life. What is needed is a bigger emphasis on personal reading in school, matching child to book, with occasional shared whole works in class , but more often little tasters to hook the reader and consideration of the multimodal ways of presenting of favourite stories .
Primary schools often get this right because there is such a wealth of fiction available to them. Secondary English teachers often feel constrained to teach to the numerous assessments and impositions on the curriculum at Key Stages 3&4.
Oh enough of schools and schooling!
But just imagine my horror, when I blogged on to my two favourite Bloggers DRJoolz and Dr Kate to find some damned tag had tempted them both into a list fetish, under the guise of a meme. (Can any word have been so much abused as it moved from science to communication, from Dawkins to BLOG? ) Ok, so I know what memes are in this context, but do they have to be so trivial.
As you can see, I have taken a leaf out of the narrative methodology of both TristramShandy and The Cock and Bull, film version (Steve Coogan was just brilliantly cast, loved him crooning to his baby) and am about to relate this last reflection to my expressed reason for Blogging: Alexander (see December BLOGS for personal details and family connections).
The sweet babe is about to accompany his mother to work next week and start his routine in nursery, so I won't be able to visit in the afternoon, or push him in his pram to see the ducks, which are now gradually returning to our lakes and ponds- This reminds me, I still haven't told you about that pram saga yet- next time perhaps. I do hope Alexander will settle in
And therefore, much against my own Blogging instinct, here is a list compiled for my grandson on his going to nursery, concluding with my favourite poem on infancy, offered as a sweet blessing on his tiny head:

Alexander may you find

1. soft hands and gentle voices wherever you go
2. carers who love children; babies in
   particular
3. a calm and loving environment; no shoutingor alarming noises
4. a warm welcome each feeding time from your
   mum
5. safe and speedy journeys home
6. happy, splashy bathtimes at the end of each day with mum and
   dad and perhaps a song
7. gentle slumbers and deep sleep
8. Times occasionally for me to visit or babysit
9. Much, much virtual love
   
   and here's just a small section from the poem, Coleridge's Frost at Midnight, one day, Alexander, I will read this to you.

Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,

Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,

Fill up the interspersed vacancies

And momentary pauses of the thought!

My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart

With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,

And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,

And in far other scenes! For I was reared

In the great city, pent mid cloisters dim,

And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.

But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze

By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags

Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,

Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores

And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear

The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible

Of that eternal language, which thy God

Utters, who from eternity doth teach

Himself in all, and all things in himself

Great universal Teacher! he shall mould

Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,

Whether the summer clothe the general earth

With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing

Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch

Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch

Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall

Heard only in the trances of the blast,

Or if the secret ministry of frost

Shall hang them up in silent icicles,

Quietly shining to the quiet moon.

Wonder now, if all any of you have read are the lists!

Aaagh!