Join the dots

I had a spot removed recently. Not that you'd notice. As a redhead I have a few of them. And not just freckles these days. I also have an increasing flock of 'barnacles' as the dermatologist referred to them. The official term is seborrheic keratosis. But I think barnacles is a great term. 

I really want to think of myself as an aged ship - one of those you see pictues of. Hauled up on a beach in Bangladesh being slowly dismantled. Not a glamorous beach with deckchair attendants and beach clubs. Not even one with locals hawking handmade bracelets, hair-braiding and massages. Just a bay full of rusting hulks, listing to one side. Sparks from angle-grinders instead of full moon fireworks.

Or maybe I'm like a washed-up whale. Also being hacked apart for my jaw, for blubber, for precious ambergris. Or just alone on a remote sub-Antarctic island. A few penguins gazing on while petrels pick out my eyes.

But back to freckles. My best friend at primary school used to play join-the-dots with the freckles on my arm, in class. (I tended to play the subordinate role in my early friendships.) I already had enough freckles for a pointillist artwork. Explains why I later gravitated to Seurat when I did Art History.

Just the other day I caught myself photo-shopping out a dark freckle on my face for a photo for a work bio. No one could mistake it for a beauty spot - not with this face. Maybe I should get it checked?

My late brother and mother both used to regularly have potential skin cancers removed. I'd arrive home for a visit and find a bit more of them missing. Some were indeed skin cancers. One may have been responsible for my brother becoming 'my late brother'. 

Anyway, this is all to say... get your spots checked regularly. Even if you're not blessed with red hair or fair skin. But don't worry about regular bottom scraping unless you're a boat. 

Also what is the collective noun for barnacles? 

Lights Out: A return to an old hobby

A few months ago I had a deliriously happy moment. It was 11.30 on Sunday night. I was in a beanbag with headphones on, a glass of whisky and bar of Whittakers chocolate nearby. And on the TV in front of me the Canadian F1 Grand Prix was about to begin.

OK, it’s probably not the happy moment most 51 year old women would want. It wasn’t an “Eat, Pray, Love” type of thing. Although, over the space of the next three hours I did all three! Instead of a mid-life crisis of taking up marathon running, visiting yoga retreats, or having a wild affair with the lawn-mowing guy, I was retreating back to something that had made me happy many years before. A love of Formula One motor racing.

It began in my early teens. Possibly as a way to stave off that awful Sunday afternoon depression when you knew you had school tomorrow and it was too late in the day to hang out with friends.

It was an innocent hobby. Not expensive. No special equipment was needed—apart from a TV. And some paper. I had a Croxley writing pad with separate pages for the teams, drivers & races. I liked to keep track of the results. The races weren’t live—they were from a week or two earlier. But in those pre-internet days there was little chance of seeing spoilers and I didn't usually read the sports pages in the newspaper.

I followed F1 for about two years like that. They were the hey days of drivers like René Arnoux,  Alain Prost, Aryton Senna, and my Italian hottie, Ricardo Patrese. McLaren, Williams, Renault & Ferrari were the top teams. I liked McLaren—still do—because of their Kiwi connection. It was during this phase my mother told me she’d been in the maternity home with me at the same time as Kiwi driver Denny Hulme’s wife. I used to imagine a baby swap. That would explain a lot. Except their baby was a boy.

In recent years I've rediscovered my love of F1. I'd attempted a return once before but the Michael Schumacher years were too predictable.  Even now, Lewis Hamilton's domination of the podium can throw an occasional pall on my enjoyment, but I've developed a far deeper interest in the sport. Just last week I found myself watching a YouTube video explaining the new nose cone features of the McLaren car. And for Mother's Day I persuaded my husband to buy me a book by a former F1 mechanic. The internet has made the sport so much more interesting for me with numerous videos to watch, articles to read, and social media accounts to follow.  I even have the McLaren F1 app on my phone so I can keep track of radio conversations between Fernando Alonso and the pit wall.

And yes, I know all the terminology. And the geography: the paddock, the grid, the pit wall, the pit lane, the chicanes and even the famous corners at certain tracks. There's Parabolica at Monza, Tabac at Monte Carlo, and the quintessentially English-named corners, Maggots and Becketts, at Silverstone. I love the street-races in Monaco, Singapore and Baku and the forested European tracks at Spa in Belgium and Spielberg in Austria.

I don't just watch the race. I also watch the three practice sessions and qualifying. Including the actual race that's three days of action every fortnight—and sometimes weekly—from late March to late November. There's a four week break in August, for the northern hemisphere summer, when I go into withdrawal but YouTube videos help with that. 

This dedication requires some late nights and early mornings. Not working has been a bonus! Races may not start until the wee hours. The UK's Sky Sports channel have a dedicated F1 team with several former drivers as presenters and their coverage is excellent. One of my favourite parts is Martin Brundle's 'Grid Walk' where he attempts to get brief interviews with drivers, team managers, and celebrities as the cars are being readied on the starting grid. His camera-person follows him doggedly through the crowds without getting run over by the morass of equipment and mechanics. And after the race is over, the podium ceremony completed, the anthems played and the champagne sprayed, I stick around to watch the wrap-up of the race as Ted Kravtiz wanders along the pit lane, poking into the garages and reviewing his notebook.

And on the mention of the champagne, that has its own ritual. The VIP dignitaries who present the trophies have to get out of the way quickly so they don't get soaked as the top three drivers spray each other and the assembled audience below them. In Abu Dhabi and Bahrain the champagne is replaced with sparkling rosewater due to religious restrictions. Apparently it's sickly sweet and very sticky. Probably not dissimilar to the energy drinks many of the teams have as sponsors. 

While energy drink companies have become major team sponsors you'll still see alcohol sponsors alongside the watch companies, software companies, banks and airlines that have their logos plastered on every available space on a car, driver or track. But tobacco sponsorship is no more. As are the the grid girls. New ownership of F1 by the Liberty Media Group saw a number of changes and the grid girls had to go. They rightly recognised what a sexist anachronism they were. In an effort to make F1 more family-friendly, and encourage participation in all levels of motor-racing, the scantily clad girls have been replaced by 'grid-kids' of both genders. 

Still, the participation of women in F1 is pretty low. The team principal of the Williams team is a woman, Claire Williams. Sky Sports has two female presenters in prominent roles. Lewis Hamilton's personal race assistant is a Kiwi woman, Angela Cullen. And you spot the occasional female among the teams' pit crews. But primarily the women you see involved are the PR people, shadowing the drivers when they're being interviewed. And then there are the WAGs—the wives and girlfriends, invariably young, beautiful and impeccably dressed, headphones marring their perfect coiffures in the back of the garages as their men risk life and limb.There's even a former Spice Girl at some races. Geri Halliwell (Ginger Spice) is married to Christian Horner, the team principal at Red Bull Racing. But there are no female drivers and none appear to be in the immediate pipeline. There's one in GP3, a 'feeder' race league, but whether she makes it through further is doubtful as her performance is not race-winning.

My friends laugh and roll their eyes at me when I mention my F1 habit. But, as one more sympathetically said recently, "It's good to be passionate about something." And I'm proud to admit I'm a middle-aged F1 motor racing fan.

Not the Magic Bus

I've heard it said that only the poor and the crazy travel by long distant bus. For instance, there was the case in 2008 in Canada where a passenger stabbed a fellow traveller, decapitated him and then began eating him. I even found an article about terrible things happening on Greyhound buses: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gq8qzw/the-worst-things-that-have-ever-happened-on-greyhound-buses

And in the first episode of Wynonna Earp, a passenger gets off the bus when it breaks down and is hauled off into the woods by something when she goes to pee. I watched that first episode last week when I was travelling by bus between my home and my old hometown. Probably wasn't the wisest thing to watch considering what happened next.

But before I get into that, I should explain why I was travelling by long distance bus instead of driving or flying. Although I am poorer than usual due to not being in work, and some - OK, many - would say I'm crazy, that's not why I chose the bus. I did so because I like long-distance travel. I love road-trips. And while I could have driven, I wanted to sit back, relax, listen to a podcast or watch a Netflix download, and watch the scenery go by.

It's been some years since I travelled long distance by bus - not since my university days. And when I made the decision to do so this time, it was with the knowledge there was a 'luxury' option available. That option promised reclining leather seats, a USB port and wall charger, and free wifi. And the cost for this was not much more than a standard ticket. So I booked it for both my outbound and return journey.

The first problem came two days before I was due to leave. On Saturday night I got a phone call from the bus company. Due to the bad weather and road closures my bus on the Tuesday wouldn't have the 'gold' seat option. They could refund and rebook me or I could choose to have a standard seat. Rebooking wasn't an option so I chose to go with the standard seat - free wifi was still available.

But on Tuesday morning, as I waited at the bus stop, I noticed a service update on the bus company's website. My bus wouldn't even be one of their fleet but would be from another company. Sure enough, when it rolled into town I could see my dreams of a comfortable trip north heading rapidly south. All the window seats were full so I squeezed into an aisle seat next to the first person who foolishly made eye contact with me. Our shoulders immediately became intimately acquainted and would stay that way for the duration. There were no arm rests on the aisle seats, and although I'm not as wide in the beam as some, I felt like I was hanging one cheek in the aisle. And corners became a challenge in staying in my seat. There was also no wifi. I was not happy.

After an hour of disgruntled sulking and swaying I listened to a Vinyl Cafe podcast. Those always cheer me up and did so once again. I resigned myself to my situation and settled back to enjoy what I could of the trip. A chicken pie and ginger slice at the lunch stop improved my mood further - as did access to a wall socket in the cafe for my phone charger. By the time we reached the snow of the central plateau I was quite happy. The children on the bus were delighted by the sight of the snow and the bus driver pulled over for five minutes to let people get out and have a play. Even though we were running a little behind time. The elderly gent next to me had never been in snow before and was pretty excited to get out and take a few photos.

My fellow passengers were a mix of the elderly, the socio-economically deprived, backpackers, and children returning home from their school-holiday visits to grandparents. They were all fantastically well behaved - I had no complaints to make about noisy screaming foreign tourists.

Then we reached Taupo and changed buses. The drivers had to transfer the bags and it was while this was happening that the catalyst for later events occurred. While moving a bag from the bus to the footpath our driver bumped it into a woman walking past. She didn't fall. She wasn't injured. She just stumbled a little and carried on. But the woman standing next to me on the footpath lost her shit! She yelled at the driver about his carelessness and told him to go apologise to the woman - who was now long gone. It turned out it was her bag that had hit the woman. The driver seem confused - he was unaware he'd bumped anyone. He told her he hadn't seen anyone there and was trying to unload quickly. But she wasn't happy. Hell Passenger - I'll call her that for now - then started abusing him about his driving, saying he'd been going too fast. He politely ignored her and continued unloading the bus. She shut up eventually and moved away.

When we boarded the next bus I decided to sit a little further forward and took a window seat near the front. I guess I broke bus etiquette by not choosing the same seat as I had on the previous bus. I instantly got the death stare from a woman across the aisle. Then Hell Passenger sat next to me. I wasn't alarmed - I thought she'd calmed down. I was so very wrong.

While we had a new relief driver, our previous driver remained on board and sat one seat ahead of us across the aisle. Hell Passenger immediately restarted her abuse. "So are you going to go apologise to that lady you knocked over? I've been recording everything for your bosses! I'm going to report you." Once again he explained that he hadn't seen the woman and apologised for having bumped her with the bag. She wouldn't accept that. He should have gone after her. He explained again why he couldn't and didn't. At this point I decided to say something. I politely said to Hell Passenger "He's apologised for this. What else would you like him to do?"

Big mistake. She rounded on me and told me "I never asked for your opinion Gingernut! And I'm recording all this." She waved her phone in my face and breathed alcohol fumes over me. Aha! It all became clear. The driver then foolishly asked what she'd meant about his poor driving. I sat there shaking my head at him, trying to get him to understand that he should drop the issue. But she let fly at him about his driving too fast around the lake. Other passengers were staring at us and the relief driver was glancing around anxiously. I decided to shut up and not engage further. Drunk Hell Passenger continued to vent at the driver who was trying his best to calm the situation down. But she was in full rant. Next thing I heard was "And I don't need comment from a bloody redneck beside me". That was it. I was furious. I turned to her and asked if she'd like me to move, because I was quite happy to do so and let her have both seats.

"No, you can stay there. I don't care!" she exhaled on me. Then she had a change of heart. "Yeah, OK. Move!"

I gathered my two bags and coat and politely asked her to move into the aisle so I could get past.
"Nah, I'm not getting up. You'll have to get past."

My blood was boiling at this point. I stood and squeezed past her, making sure I stuck my backside as far back into her face as I could. I hoped I would also stand on her feet in the process and bang my bag into her head but I didn't achieve that. Neither did I achieve the fart which would have been the cherry-on-the-top of my exit. The abused driver and several passengers reached out their hands to steady me as I wobbled into the aisle of the moving bus. Drunk Hell Passenger muttered something about my arse. I staggered down the bus a few seats, sat down and started crying with frustration and anger. I hate confrontation - it always makes me cry.

I sat there weeping and writing a Twitter DM to the bus company's account advising them of what had occurred. They quickly replied, wanting to know if I felt safe and did I want the driver to talk to the woman. They also asked if I wanted the police to meet the bus at the next stop. I let them know that I didn't require the police and that it was best if the driver didn't try and talk to the woman again. I just wanted them to know that he'd done nothing wrong if they received a complaint from Drunk Hell Passenger. They said they'd call the driver at the next stop and have a chat to him. Their response was great - they'd seen my tweet from earlier in the journey when I'd had a moan about the downgraded service, and after this incident they apologised for my terrible journey and said they'd see if their customer service team could do something nice for me.

When we reached the next stop - my final destination - I made sure Drunk Hell Passenger got off before me. A couple of young women, who'd been sitting in front of us, grabbed my arm as I passed and asked if I was OK. As I gathered my bag from the driver I let him know I was the one who'd contacted the company to let them know what had occurred. He thanked me and shrugged. "It's nothing."

I greeted my family who were there to pick me up. I'd kept them apprised of what had been occurring while in transit. As we walked to the car who should we see walking towards us but Drunk Hell Passenger. I whispered to my sister, "That's her. Watch this." As she passed us - three Gingernuts - I leaned over and sweetly said. "I hope you enjoy the rest of your trip." She barely glanced up as she said "Get fucked!".

The next day I received an email from the bus company, apologising again for what I'd gone through and refunding my fare for that part of the journey. They also thanked me for standing up for their driver. That was an outcome I was very happy with - their communications throughout had been exceptional.

But it was with some nervousness that I waited for my bus home a week later. Would I get the 'gold' seat I'd booked? Would Drunk Hell Passenger be on board?

I did get my luxury reclining seat - a single seat all to myself. I had a wall charger for my phone and tablet. I had a tray. I had free wifi. I had an armrest and seatbelt. I wouldn't have to dangle a bum cheek in the aisle and hang on for dear life! And, best of all, I had the same lovely driver. As I boarded our eyes met and we grinned at each other. "I hope we don't have any crazies on board today" I said. He rolled his eyes. Later, at our afternoon tea stop, he came over and talked with me. When I told him she'd reeked of alcohol he said if he'd realised that he would have put her off the bus. She'd continued on the next part of the journey with him, muttering to passengers. But he said he'd dealt with worse and it was all in a day's work. I hope for his sake he never gets a decapitating cannibal on board.

Student flats

My daughter recently moved into her first student flat. It's in a part of town close to the university and renowned for its student flats. I googled the address when she told me about it and, as I zoomed in on the map, I was hoping her flat wasn't in one of the houses I first spotted. It was. It looked it might get sunlight for about an hour in mid-Summer.

Unfortunately, Google Maps didn't prepare me for the worst. It was only when we moved her in that we discovered the steepness and narrowness of the street. We'd hired some movers to take her bed, dresser and desk from home and it was well worth the money not to be the ones trying to manoeuvre a van and find a nearby parking spot. Fortunately we'd found a spot right outside and when the movers turned up - from the wrong direction, despite my instructions - we moved our car out for them to park. Compared to some places in town, the path from the street to the house wasn't too bad - a dozen steps, and a switchback, broken path. We lugged her boxes down to the house and let the movers do the big stuff. Of course her room was in the back of the house. I did mutter to the moving guy not to worry about hitting the walls on the way through - I doubt you could damage the house more.

The house is at least a hundred years old and it's wearing its age badly. The boards of the front porch are on the ground. My daughter's room is a reasonable size with high ceilings and a skylight - perfect for heat dissipation. The floor isn't level and, until she got some mats, she had to hold on to her desk to stop her chair careering across the floor. She showed me the rest of the flat and the floors are consistently inconsistent in level. The bath in the bathroom outside her room is tear-drop shaped and quite possibly original. Tacked on the back of the house - on the 'sun-ward' side - is a ramshackle conservatory used for 'smoking'. When she first told me about the flat she kept referring to it as an 'observatory'. Fortunately the flat has some redeeming features. There's a woodburner in the lounge, an ancient dishwasher in the kitchen, and a drier in the laundry! They also have two fridges but are debating if they can afford to plug both in. The drier is a necessity but two fridges is a luxury.

Thinking back to my university days I realised it wasn't a lot worse than my final flat. I'd had the luxury of private boarding in my first year, and flatting with a working relative in my second year. That flat had been pretty nice. It was only in my third year that I regressed to a truly seedy classic student flat. It was an old house opposite a brewery. Many unsuccessful plans were made to tunnel across the road and run a beer-hose into the flat. I can't recall how many bedrooms the house might have had originally - mine was subdivided (surely illegally) to create a passage way through to a sun-porch when our resident arsonist lived. I could barely swing a cat in my room but it was of a similar size to both my bedroom at home and the sun-porch I'd boarded in during my first year. Other flatmates had more generously sized rooms - one managed to fit a king-sized waterbed in hers! Nine of us lived in that place somehow.

We had two bathrooms - one most of us never used as the boys in the flat did a poor job of cleaning it. The pubic hairs in the drain were possibly sentient. The other bathroom was off the lounge. This was the bathroom we discovered the cat liked using. We had inherited a black cat called Mephistopheles from a previous tenant who was rumoured to be a witch. This cat was quite possibly her familiar. It used to climb the walls at times - although that could have been also due to the pot smoke it ingested while hanging out with one of the flatmates in his room.

One day we were 'studying' in the lounge when we saw the cat walk through to the bathroom, heard the sound of urinating in the toilet, and then saw the cat stroll back out. We looked at each other in disbelief then went to check. Sure enough, the surface water of the toilet was disturbed. We were intrigued and determined to catch it in action. And we did. Some weeks later we saw the cat heading through the lounge and into the bathroom. A flatmate and I crept to the door of the bathroom and peered around. There was Mephistopheles perched on the loo seat peeing in the toilet. He was not impressed to be caught at it and fled...without wiping or flushing.

So I wish my daughter well in her student flat. The first thing I made her put up in her room was a smoke detector though. I was pleased when she told me they also have an extinguisher and fire blanket. I also slipped a four-pack of toilet paper into her packing. Loo paper is always tradeable. She's looking forward to seeing sunlight briefly in January...if she's home from her part-time job in time.

Dawn Intruder

While cleaning up an old PC I found this story I wrote about an early-morning incident. It deserves to be resurrected:

This morning, just before 6am, I was awakened by a crashing noise in the kitchen upstairs (split level house with bedrooms downstairs). Hubby was in a rare, non-twitching sleep, so I left him and crept upstairs alone. As I reached the top of the stairs I could hear something or someone scuffling around the kitchen. I walked into the kitchen and confronted my intruder – who was cunningly masked in a cat biscuit bag!

My Siamese cat Dara had recently been getting into the pantry and ripping open the foil bags of cat biscuits. This time she'd got the bag stuck on her head so it hung down the front like a mask. She was running all over, knocking over vases (which didn’t break) and had somehow knocked my brand new teapot, which I got for Christmas, off the kitchen bench.That was the smashing noise as the spout broke off. It had also landed on the cats' water bowl and smashed some plastic off it.

At this point I was in fits of laughter. Dara and her undignified mask ran off downstairs and I followed and cornered her in the bathroom where for a moment I paused and wondered if I should get the camera. But I thought that would be cruel and pulled the bag off her head, undocumented. She ran off into the garage in deep shame. I went back to bed chuckling away.  I awoke later to discover she had brought us a mouse, as some strange form of apology. It will be interesting to see if Dara has learned her lesson this time!

Update: we moved the cat biscuits and there were no repeat incidents.

Losing my husband

I lost my husband last year.

It's OK. I'm OK. Don't worry about me. It wasn't for long. I found him again after about 15 minutes.

It took that long because we were at a second-hand book fair with about 300 other people. And nearly all the men in the hall were late middle-aged, white and balding...exactly like my husband. I couldn't recall exactly what my husband was wearing but I was pretty sure it was the black zip-front jersey with the additional layer of cat-fur. The same jersey that I wanted to have a nasty washing-machine accident. I hated that he went out in public wearing it. But judging by the other men in the hall, I wasn't the only wife with this problem.

He'd been at the table with the military books when I'd last seen him. He always headed there first at book-fairs. But when I looked over he was gone. He wasn't looking at the DVDs or the sci-fi books. He wasn't even by the table of history books - usually his second port of call. Then I saw him by the humour books. I sidled on up and made a snarky remark about whether he was looking for Humour for Beginners when I realised it was someone else's husband. I blushed, mumbled that he looked like my husband, and scuttled away.

I'd had fun with another woman's husband at a book-fair once before. A friend's husband. For several years we'd be at the fair at the same time. And I would surreptitiously find the most embarrassing book I could and drop it in the box he was carrying. He wouldn't notice it amongst the others when paying and he'd arrive home with Naughty Nurses erotica or some such thing, much to the delight of my friend who I'd let in on the joke.

But this year he wasn't there. I wished he was as I'd be able to recognise him. I moved on to the hall stage where the sheet music and ancient vinyl were displayed. Putting aside the temptation to buy a country album for my husband's secret Santa present, I gazed out over the sea of grey, pink, and age-spotted heads.

There he was! At the back of the hall, trawling through the art books. Keeping him fixed in my sights, I shuffled my way through the tables stacked with Dan Brown books. He looked up as I approached.

"Oh there you are," he said. "I couldn't see you. Your hair's not as red as it used to be."

And he wondered why he got a bright red baseball cap for Christmas. And why his favourite jersey went missing.