The taste of childhood

I’M SUDDENLY reminded of my mother sitting on the back step of our house in Atherton, Lancashire, scrubbing the new potatoes that my father has just dug up from his vegetable patch.

I’m aware of it because, like him, I’ve just dug up the first of our potato harvest and My Good Lady, with brush in hand, and bowl of water before her, is ready to scrub away in preparation for our dinner.

And very good they turn out to be, too, although the quantity is a tad disappointing – but maybe I’m just jumping the gun and harvesting them a bit too soon; I’ll leave the rest for another week or two, give them a chance to fill out a bit more.

I’ve been thinking about my father quite a lot lately; each time I pass the mirror I almost catch a glimpse of him in my own reflection.

I’m aware of how much like him I’m becoming. Of course, when he was my age now, he was, to me, an old man.

And talking to Den this evening, at our last-Monday-of-month dinner, I’m reminded of my father again, when Den describes his attempts at farming. “It’s a twenty-four hour a day job,” he says, “seven days a week.”

My father was a farm boy, but he turned his back on the life, and went his own way.

Yet I think he had some soil in his blood, like all of his family before him. I remember the fruit and vegetables he used to grow in his own plot – wonderful. Flavours and textures that no shop-bought veg could hope to have.

And when I bite into my own home-grown spuds, suddenly the years fly away back to my childhood, and the taste I enjoyed then.

It’s like they say, what goes around comes around.

Talking of education

LITTLE ROB, the chef/manager of the Pub, is moonlighting as a cookery teacher at the local college of education.

“How’s the teaching going, Rob?” I enquire.

He slumps down onto the stool next to me, and grimly shakes his head. For a moment he seems to be struggling to find the words to express himself. “Awful,” he says finally. “Just awful.”

And he goes on, “Have you any idea about what the real state of education is in this country?”

“Oh dear,” I murmur. “Is it that bad?”

“Oh, the kids don’t actually learn anything. They aren’t there long enough, for one thing. I mean full-time vocational courses run now for just two and a half days a week. The rest of the time is allocated to what they call ‘private study’. And when they do come to exam time it’s all multiple choice questions. They can just guess and tick the box and they’ve got one chance in three of getting it right.”

PD agrees, himself a former geography teacher. “Yeah, I always used to tell my kids don’t worry if you don’t know the answer. Just use a bit of common sense to get the obvious wrong answers, then make a guess at the right one.”

“It’s a Mickey Mouse course,” Rob goes on. “It’s got no real educational value. Even at university these days a lot of exams are in the form of multiple choice. As for GCSEs – well, providing you’ve got a pulse you’ll almost certainly get your certificate. They dish them out like confetti. And all so that some politician can stand up in the House of Commons and boast how good his party’s policies are.” Rob shakes his head. “It’s really depressing.”

And he adds, “It’s a relief to get back here and fry a few chips!”

Reflecting on this conversation, I’m struck by how much things have changed since I was in education. In my day, as a student, you had to actually write essays – and to do that you actually had to know something, either from lectures or books or whatever.

And although I never worked as a teacher in a schoolroom setting, I was on the educational side of the museum service, as a schools guide and administrator. Dealing with the kids was a joy – I tried to make learning fun, and I always made sure that they went away sharing something of my enthusiasm.

And from the follow-up letters I used to get from both children and teachers, clearly I was doing something right.

Such a pity that our children’s education has become a object of league tables, and statistics and reducing learning to the lowest common denominator.

Oh dear, oh dear! Old fogey or what?

End-of-an-era sort of day

THE GERIATRICS’ CORNER is quite busy today – a fair few of us have gathered to wish our friend, Gaz, a bon voyage and best wishes for his move tomorrow.

Oddly, the mood isn’t as celebratory as I might have expected – it’s got something of an end of an era feeling to it, as if we’re the parents watching the last of our kids take to wing.

Certainly, the old Corner won’t be the same with his going.

He’s been there for ten years, in all, almost part of the furniture of the place – certainly for all the time we’ve been regulars there.

PD is here, and I suspect he’s even more upset than we are – he hates change or any rearrangement of his routine – although even he accepts that Gaz, as a young man, must look to his future.

Fran and Den are here, too, and even they seem a little subdued. It’s not until Linda appears, well-tanned and refreshed from her holiday in Tenerife, that things pick up – but then Linda really is a bit of a live wire.

So, between her, and Helen, and My Good Lady and the Times crossword, the session ends in moderately cheerful spirits.

We can’t quite settle on what to do for dinner this evening – neither of us really feels like cooking, not even something quick from the freezer. We decide – almost by default – to go to our village local for some of their excellent fish and chips, washed down with a glass of Chardonnay.

By the time we get home, though, we’re both enshrouded with a cloak of weariness. We watch a little telly – University Challenge (BBC 2) – and then MGL decides to call an early night.

So, it’s been a bit of a strange day, a little melancholy, a little joyful, and at the end, a little wearying.

C’est la vie.

Meditation

DRIFTING…

… Drifting…

… Slow. As if floating on a dark current of inner silence…

It’s an old meditation technique I learned years ago, when I was studying Raja yoga at university.

I used to find it efficacious then, and I’m hoping it’ll be the same now.

The method involves sitting quietly, in subdued-lit room (my preference, not essential), breathing in slow, deep breaths, and keeping my attention focused on just one thing – some music (Bach) that I have playing in the background.

Other things intrude, of course – other thoughts, other sensations… The trick is not the resist them. Just push them gently to one side, and to refocus on the music.

The tinnitus is the main distraction – it makes the music sound as if it’s coming from a badly tuned radio… But still, I persevere.

I’ve been practicing this meditation for about quarter of an hour each day for the last few days.

Slowly, very slowly, I let my consciousness expand to take in everything immediately around me – what the Buddhists call “centring”. And then I try to bring it back to the music…

It’s like clenching your muscles in order all the better to relax them.

And, yes, something like peace does seem to come, not in waves or anything dramatic, but just as a quiet trickle. As the music ends, I’m aware that my state of being has subtly altered, that I’m now a little more relaxed, a little more at ease with myself.

I’m hoping, by this means, that some of the emotional imbalance I’ve been experiencing, might at least be tamed, if not cured.

Whether it’s working it’s far too early to say, but at least I’m trying.

Drifting…

… Drifting…