Staying over

It's sometimes blindingly obvious - that link between childhood fascinations and grown-up obsessions. It takes no effort at all for me to trace the journey from standing with my Dad, on the terraces at Crystal Palace football club, to standing with Philip behind the goal at Bromley FC.  It's almost as easy to see how my my love for Formula 1 racing started when we walked beside the wide tracks of the one-time racing circuit in Crystal Palace Park, or listened to the roar of the engines from the back door step at home.

It isn't always quite as simple to understand the impact of the things we never did, those things that went unnoticed and unremarked at the time.

Looking back I think we must have been fairly self-contained as a family; the characters in my memory bank are always my parents, grandparents and sisters. Apart from an occasional aunt and uncle, I don't remember any other visitors. Perhaps there were friends of my parents who made quiet calls after I'd gone to bed, but if they did, there were never any traces of their presence the next day. And, apart from the time when my Nan was really sick, I never, ever, remember anyone coming to stay.

No childish sleepover ending in a top-to-toe bed-share; no late night dinner party leading to a blanket- draped figure on the sofa. No strange coats thrown over the banisters at the bottom of the stairs, no odd toothbrushes in the bathroom, no politely embarrassed conversations over breakfast.

Our house wasn't big; five of us and only three bedrooms, but it never felt too small to me, certainly not like Maria from school, who lived with her six brothers and sisters in one of those tiny houses overlooking the cemetery. We didn’t have central heating, but hardly anyone I knew did then –we were used to the winter frost on the inside of the bedroom windows, to cowering under the wall heater in the bathroom, to sitting in the kitchen with all the gas rings blazing to keep us warm while we ate. But the house was always clean; properly clean. not just a tidy-away-the-newspapers-and  flick-the-hoover-round clean. 

I never asked then, and I wouldn’t dream of asking now, so I'll never really know why nobody came to stay.  But in the midst of all that didn't happen, I somehow missed out on a whole heap of life lessons, on the etiquette of staying over.

I never quite grasped how much cleaning in advance is a good thing or when to stop; I could never see the boundaries between thoughtful hospitality and force-feeding. I never learnt when it was ok to admit to tiredness, to suggest it was time for bed; and I never understood the proper arrangements for getting up in the morning or agreeing the order for the bathroom. I couldn't work out if it was better to take in a cup of tea and risk waking people too early, or to wait until they decided to surface and risk leaving them feeling ignored. I never reached that state of relaxed happiness where you know your guests are having a grand time and you can stop trying to fend off their boredom and disappointment.

For years I shied away from inviting people to stay; in my head I invented all sorts of reasons why it was a bad idea or simply inconvenient. 

This weekend I learned something I never found out as a child; if you invite good people because you enjoy their company, you end up enjoying their company. Your new house begins to feel a bit more like home and you start to see the place where you live with different eyes. You might even begin to feel a strange sense of pride that your village has the only listed duck pond in the country and the largest scale model of the solar system in the world. It might not even matter if you don’t quite get the etiquette right, you could still have a simply lovely time.

And this weekend we did.

Garden-keeping

It will come as no surprise to those who know me, if I write that housekeeping is not my forte. It's not that I can't do it; I know all that could possibly ever need to be known about cleaning fluids and polish, dusters and mops. I have rubbed and scrubbed, vacuumed and swept with the best of them. I've experienced the self-righteous glow of turning a pigsty into a palace, but frankly it just doesn't interest me. I resent the time spent washing things down and tidying stuff up; I'd rather be doing almost anything else.

But while I can merrily ignore dust until I trip over it, and live with accumulated papers til they cut me, I simply cannot leave grass that has grown too long, or weeds that need pulling. All week long I've been getting itchier and twitchier as I've practically heard them growing in the garden, calling to me as they stretch their green arms out to the sun. This morning I responded to the call and spent a few lovely hours trimming and digging, and now, with achy fingers and dusty knees I can sit here with a genuine sense of satisfaction from a job done well, that was well worth the doing.

What is it about being outside that makes work feel like play?

When we were kids we spent a lot of time outside, while mum was indoors trying to make our house spotless. I sometimes joke that we were locked out in the garden so we couldn't come in and make a mess, but I'm not entirely sure that isn't true. When I think of my mother back then, she's almost always either cleaning or ironing. I'm probably the only person on the planet for whom the Beatles' album Rubber Soul is inextricably mixed with the sounds of my mum singing along to the backing track of a hissing steam iron.

In my mum's head, anything, and I do mean anything, that required washing, must also demand ironing - socks, pants, towels; nothing was already sufficiently flat that she wouldn't feel the need to bludgeon it into further submission. And given that there were five of us, that always meant a pretty huge ironing pile waiting to be tackled.

It seemed to have a hold on her, as though she couldn't relax until it was conquered for the day. Even on the most glorious sunny days, when you might have thought the heat of an iron was too much to bear, she'd still set up the ironing board. Her only concession would be to open the french windows, and set the board just outside, stretching the iron's lead as far into the garden as she could.

For two weeks of every year though, it was different. Each afternoon of the last week in June, and the first week in July, the housework would be abandoned, as mum sat down to watch Wimbledon. Glued to the TV she'd live through every moment of Roger Taylor's unsuccessful efforts to be the next Fred Perry. And those are my favourite memories of her. In my mind, a whole summer was mixed up in just those two weeks.

I'm sure that was when she'd let us make our own ice-lollies, pouring orange juice into special plastic holders; or when she'd give us a bowl of peas to pod, sitting on the back door-step in the sun. It might have been when we helped her pick gooseberries from the bottom of the garden, or loganberries from the bush behind the shed. I know it was then that she tried to teach us the rules of tennis, when I learnt that a tie at 40 points was called deuce and not juice.

Every now and then, if it really was a perfect summer's day, then mum would abandon the inside of the house and come to sit on a deck chair in the garden, to watch us play our own version of Wimbledon on the lumpy, but regularly-cut back lawn in Croxted Road. I'm sure that was the reason I ached so much to have my own tennis racket, and why I was oh so chuffed to get a perfect white Slazenger. I still have it; although nowadays it's warped beyond playable and the shiny white paint has almost all chipped off.

You can't see any more where I carefully scratched my name into the handle, claiming ownership, exhibiting such pride, but I think it's the only possession that has stayed with me since childhood. Maybe that, and the memories it brings with it is why, even now, at the slightest hint of warmth and sunshine, I feel the need to get out there to cut the grass.

The power of a long thin envelope

I'm not sure exactly when it was, but I must have been about ten years old when I first discovered the power of a long thin envelope. Up until then, the only mail I'd been remotely interested in was the stiff square variety that turned up at Christmas and birthdays; cards containing at worst a gaudily coloured wish and at best a folded five pound note.

This envelope was different. It was cream and important looking, with a typed label on the front. Though I knew it was about me, it wasn't addressed to me, so all I could do was wait for my Dad to open it, wait for him to read it, then watch him pass it to my Mum to do the same. All I could do was watch while they looked at each other and wait until they finally looked at me.

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Some months earlier there'd been discussions about secondary school. This was in the days when the Eleven Plus was still widespread, when children were categorised, classified and labelled on the basis of a three-part test. My big sister had already passed hers and was attending the local grammar school, but I wasn't daunted. I'd spent most of my life playing word games and doing puzzles; I knew the smug satisfaction of getting a sum right,  demonstrating my comprehension skills, predicting the next shape or number in a series.I was one of those sickening kids who actually liked tests; I positively looked forward to it.

So that was when my parents upped the ante. I've no idea who first suggested I might sit for a scholarship to James Allen's Girls' School, a local independent fee-paying establishment. I don't remember if they asked me what I thought, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway, I couldn't have expressed a view; nobody I knew had ever gone there, or was ever likely to do so.

The scholarship exam was in three parts, two rounds of tests, and for those who did well enough, a final interview. My memory of the tests is hazy and mixed up with later experiences of exams, but I'm pretty sure we had to sit in a huge hall with tall windows. The first challenge was probably finding my seat - walking down the long rows to find an empty chair at one of the wooden fold-up tables, taking my seat while looking around at the other girls, watching them place their pencils neatly on the table-tops.

I must have done ok. I got through the first round of tests and then the second one. A few weeks later,  before I'd even really thought about it, I was on my way to an interview.

Nowadays, if someone I knew was going to an interview I'd tell them to prepare, to think about the questions they might be asked, to imagine themselves in the role. Back then, the whole thing still bore no relation to reality. I don't think it even occurred to my parents, with their misplaced trust in my innate ability, that I might need some guidance or practice. It wasn't until the imposing lady with the stuck-up voice enquired haughtily of my entirely healthy, but distinctly adenoidal south London accent, "do you have a cold?" that I started to realise I might be out of my depth.

My nasally-toned answers to her questions became monosyllabic. After a while she waved a hand grandly towards a large gilt-framed picture propped up on a chair -"'talk to me about this painting Sharon. Describe to me what you see. Tell me what it makes you think of". At that point I think we both knew we were wasting our time.

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I'd worked out that a letter of acceptance would come with lots of information about uniform and books, about kit-bags and fountain pens. And that would mean a thick, padded envelope.

So when the long thin envelope arrived, I already knew what it contained. In the time it took for my Dad to open it, read it, then pass it to my Mum to do the same; before they'd looked at each other and then at me; before I'd even started to feel guilty for disappointing their hopes, I'd already learned that the power of a long thin envelope is the power to dash down dreams you didn't even know you had.