Saturday 16 June 2012 - back from Ireland

C and I loved Ireland, but the weather made our 4-day trip hard work. She's been sleeping it off most of today. 

Tuesday we spent in Dublin mostly, looking round Trinity College and the city. The College looks very solid and eminent; maybe less desperately elitist than Oxbridge colleges though very hard to get into. Or maybe the postgraduate students showing us round were so friendly and down to earth that they made the whole place seem more welcoming. I can see why C dreams of going there, but she's not at all sure what to expect of last month's exams and knows Trinity may well remain a dream. As cities go, we liked Dublin too - there were crowds of other tourists of course, like us - or rather, not like us: mostly American - but it still seemed more spacious, less hurried and of a more manageable size than places like London or Manchester. We walked on the waterside paths, didn't do the Guinness tour, and took the bus to Wicklow.

Wicklow suited us just fine. It's a little town with a working harbour, a pebble beach, a golf course and some industry; unpretentious and not touristy; rather like Peel without the kippers and trippers. The main street is lined with small shops, making you think small-scale enterprise is coming back after all, back to the 1960s. But we were told it's a facade - the shopkeepers had agreed to keep their window displays going, rather than boarding them up, even though the doors were locked and the shelves empty, so as not to deter people from coming to the place altogether; the Irish economy is as dire as the media says it is. No wonder it felt so quiet and the people had plenty of time for us clumsy English visitors - the qualities we so liked about the place weren't altogether a blessing for it. 

We did some walking in the hills and by the sea, and would have liked to do a lot more, but we weren't equipped for the weather, got soaked to the skin both days, and never really dried out properly, as the hostel we were staying in was warm and cosy but didn't have enough space or radiators to cope - that's what made the trip rather hard work.

On Friday it was still raining, so we decided to go back to Dublin to find indoor things to do before catching our plane back to Manchester that evening. This amounted mainly to McDonald's, the Natural History Museum (old-fashioned; full of fossils and endearing but moth-eaten stuffed animals, and the information texts hadn't changed much since the 1950s either) and window shopping. Fortunately the rain eased off. 

We got back to find a hole in the lounge ceiling. A leak from the shower or bath had worked its way through the plaster board to stain the ceiling. Dave had prodded it with a screwdriver, and down it came. Again. 

And it's still raining. 

Monday 4 June 2012: Jubilee concert

Chapel-en-le-Frith Town Band, Male Voice Choir and Ladies Choir staged a concert in Chapel Memorial Park for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Cold, windy and nearly 3 hours long. We sang like mad, but people could only hear snatches, depending on the wind and where the (single) mike was pointing. The band improved over the course of the afternoon. At least they were audible, and looked the part. A surprising number of people stayed to listen, in their overcoats with thermos flasks and union jack flags - being stalwart and stoic and not letting the side down after seeing the thousands who lined the banks of the Thames yesterday in driving rain to watch the Royal Pageant. Catherine stayed all afternoon too, reading the Kindle and waiting for it to be over.  She said it would have been better to skip each choir's own inaudible items and stick to the joint items with the band, such as Rule Britannia and Jerusalem, which were really all the audience wanted to hear and wave their flags to. We liked the hot tea and Victoria sponge in the interval and tried hard to feel British but were just too cold - or perhaps that was part of it.

Friday 1 June 2012

The week in Majorca turned out to be a wonderful holiday and just what they needed after exams. It was sunny and hot but not too hot; busy enough to be cheerful but not too brash; cheap but not trashy; plenty to do but nothing they felt coerced into doing. The apartment was clean and simple; the transport arrangements worked without a hitch. The four stayed friends throughout, sometimes going round in twos, mostly going round together. They had a couple of beach days, hired a pedalo and swam in clear calm water; a boat trip to an island of lizards; a day at a water park and half a day in Palma. A revelation for Catherine: they went to a club for a foam party, made friends with "some really nice people who were Irish and students but not even drunk", and she surprised herself by enjoying it. It's a treat to see photos of the four girls, even Erika and Catherine, looking happy and relaxed. A week was just enough: less wouldn't have done the trick, but they were ready for home and tired by the travelling.
With unfortunate timing, the washing machine broke down and one of the guinea pigs keeled over dead this morning, but C intends to sleep rather than let either of those things worry her.

Sunday 27 May 2012

On Friday CA reported that the Majorcan apartment was lovely, and in a relatively quiet family-geared area, and they'd been to the supermarket, and Erika had survived the flight relatively calmly, and the only thing sh had forgotten was the PIN for her new travel money card. Today she said they were all going on a 5-hour boat trip to a nature reserve island with the chance to try snorkelling for 22 euro. I still can't get over the fact that this whole holiday was chosen, booked, organised and managed by someone who spent most of the last seven years trying to hide.

I've had a wonderful but anxious day of sun and wind on Kinder - the amazing hot dry wind and stupendous views of blue and green and hazy moorland didn't entirely quell my worries about my knee and about trying to keep up with the leader Andrew, who kept up a relentless pace just a shade too fast for me. In the end he was far worse affected by the steep descent to Dalehead than I was, as he slipped and wrenched his left knee at the top, and pain and nausea brought him to a stop. Once he got down to Dalehead, Yvette bullied him into sitting down while I fetched my car to take him to his own, John bullied him into swallowing ibuprofen, and the others commiserated briskly over the random slip that had felled the leader at the end of a bold and brilliant walk. He had even arranged a touch of luxury for us at the hottest, most wearisome stage in the 20 miles - a box of ice and chilled drinks hidden behind a wall in Edale.

Thursday 17 May 2012

Poor Catherine. This was the biggest and heaviest day of exams, 3 hours of Spanish followed by three and a quarter hours of biology. She has been battling for literally months with the barrage of biology facts and figures, going through all the previous exam papers, learning DNA, respiration, photosynthesis, endocrinology etc inside out - all the big topics. But they were hardly mentioned; instead were lots of part-questions about topics she'd thought of fleeting significance, so she came out totally frustrated, crushed with disappointment, sickeningly afraid of not getting a grade 5 or 6 (which she thinks she will need for Trinity), as well as totally bl;itzed by 6+ hours sat in a hot stuffy room beating her brains out. Also she had spent so long studying biology that Spanish revision had got crowded out so she felt she hadn't got enough grammar and vocabulary to do well in what should have been an easy grade 6/7. And she is so tired.

Wednesday 16 May 2012

A good and busy day in London - although one of the reasons I was there was to attend Stephan's funeral, so I walked in the crematorium full of dead people and tears, and greeted Ros, whom I was there to show support for, and told Veronica she'd been tremendous in writing the eulogy  for her Dad and reading it out while wanting to cry. But the rest of the day Dave and I were exploring Greenwich and the Cutty Sark, and the best of it (and my main reason for coming) was that we met Rik at Canary Wharf, the first time I'd seen him since late January. And he's fine; and doing well at work; and they're fairly hopeful Nicole will be accepted on the MA course she wants at Kingston or Reading; and he's enjoying his flat and loving East London for being young and modern and vibrant; and Nicole likes it too.

Thursday 10 May 2012

Catherine is almost half way through her final IB exams and is working like a turbo-charged knowledge machine. There are sheets of biology notes stuck around the shower, lists of French verbs pinned to the curtains, and she reads ESS case studies in bed. She is determined to give herself the best chance of getting the grades she deserves, and if persistence and labour counted for anything she should get top marks. So far she has been non-committal about the papers - 'not too bad' - which probably means quite good, but you often can't be sure what the questions are getting at, and there are some big ones to come, including a horrendous day next Thursday with 3 hours of Spanish followed by 3 hours 15 minutes of biology.

Feeling ill hasn't helped - pains in back and belly, some headaches and nausea - but I think they are all stress related and try not to worry too hard as the symptoms seem fairly non-specific and don't stop her eating and sleeping reasonably well. As well as the monumental effort to study, she is managing an equally demanding effort to look up and out from time to time at the world outside, her forthcoming holiday, and the prospect of a job in a catering company for the summer (though this scares her).

The house seems unwontedly calm, as Dave is at Buttermere with the lads. He took the car, so we have rented one to help with getting to and from exams. It's a Toyota Aygo, small, cheerful and very blue, and suits us very well. We went for a spin up the bypass, but after topping 58mph on the downhill bit decided that was enough excitement and came home.