RIP Lester

When I was about 8 or 10, Mum told my brother and I over breakfast that there'd been a death in the family. Cereal spoons paused in mid-air. We went through our list of pets, which at that point in a child's life is always lengthy. It wasn't my gerbil, it wasn't my brother's gerbil, it wasn't their myriad (named) babies. It wasn't even the stray carrier pigeon which had taken to 'resting' on our back steps for the last couple of weeks.

We racked our brains, and I started to get worried.

'It's not Dad is it?'.

If you know her, you know my Mum is not exactly effusive, and having gone through our list of nearest and dearest fluffy creatures, he was the only available candidate.

Well, obviously it wasn't. Not even a Mancunian mother is that heartless. It was a goldfish, I'm not sure we even had a name.

Anna's beta fish on the other hand does have a name, Lester, and Lester's 'sleeping' right now on the bottom of his bowl.

Lester was a present from Anna's Nani, for Anna's first Easter which would have made him about 3 years old. It was a daunting to add another creature that required regular nurturing to a household already straining to cope with a doddery old guinea pig and a demanding 9 month old. Yet despite almost pathological neglect, Lester thrived. We tried to remember to feed him regularly, we even washed his bowl out once or twice, and he kept puttering along, much to Anna's delight. He even survived her increasingly inquisitive toddler and pre-schooler stages. He was frequently given 'apple juice to drink' or goldfish crackers were found bobbing on the surface of his bowl. She would introduce 'friends' or 'treasures' to his bowl - small plastic creatures or even worse, unsterlised beach glass and shells. More often than not though he would be found swimming for his life as she attempted to 'pet' him.

Lester was a survivor, until last night. We haven't broken it to Anna yet. Should you confront a 3 year old with the realities of death? Should he just disappear? We're not mad enough to replace him. Our household budget could barely stretch to those 4 pellets a day. Should we have an elaborate flushing funeral? Suggestions are very welcome as she's going to get a tad suspicious pretty soon - even Mummy doesn't sleep that long.

Seven Silly Stories About Me

With apologies for the satellite delay, here's the meme that Villa Luna tagged me on. I'm not sure if they all qualify as 'silly' but they're all pretty chuffing embarrassing.


1. Late one night in my first year at University a group of friends decided to come round to my room for the evening. Uncertain of the state of my room and not wishing to embarrass myself, I decided to race off in front so I could do a quick tidy before the hoards arrived. Unfortunately in my haste I tripped on a flight of stairs. My guests were greeted by the sight of me sprawled on the concrete, skirt over my head flashing a very questionable pair of knickers.

2. When my brother and I were very small I wanted to put a picture up in my room. We decided where it was going to go, and he kindly offered to bang in the nail for me. My Dad happened to be walking past my bedroom window at the time - approximately three seconds before my brother would have hammered that nail an inch above the light switch and electrocuted himself to death.

3. I once asked a French teacher how to spell 'double-v' (W).

4. I've been involved in 3 minor car accidents. Two of them have been in a garage.

5. When Anna was seconds old and handed to me for the first time I was so deranged I thought 'bloody hell, a baby'.

6. When LK and I first met we drove cross-country together from CA to NY in a VW Rabbit (a Golf to you Brits). For a reason that is too complicated to explain we had a surfboard on the roof. Whilst driving through Arizona we passed through a torrential downpour. I went "oh no, the surfboard" to which LK replied "shit yeah, we'd better not get it wet".

7. When I was very much younger I 'found' my cervix (don't ask), and thought I was dying of cancer. I never told a soul.

Sunday Walk

If there was ever a photo that summed up my family it would be this one:















As I've mentioned before, the Sunday walk was one of the things my brother and I would dread, particularly in our petulant teens, as if staying at home and watching The Waltons was any better alternative. I miss it now though. These photos my Mum sent make me long to grab my wellies, some kendal mint cake and that extra pair of thick socks.
















Of course, it's completely possible to hike in SB, and there are some beautiful trails. It's just that you have only two options; you either hike straight up to the top of the mountains, or you walk along the beach. There is nothing in between.

So here's a picture of me struggling with the inequity of living in Southern California and not being able to walk through some muddy cowpat-strewn field in my wellies:














Sometimes I don't know how I manage.

Fit To Be Tired

I used to be fit.

Many, many years ago I was superbly, effortlessly fit. The type of fit you take for granted as a pre-pubescent girl.

It was that long ago.

We were an active family; I did swimming, ballet, judo (all of them reluctantly and without talent), and we would do marathon 'walks' in the Yorkshire Dales every Sunday fortified only by cheese and pickle sandwiches and the occasional lump of Kendal mint cake. It's good stuff, pure sugar, but still provided barely enough calories to help us face the drizzle and drag our muck-clad wellies round that final escarpment.

My Dad had a way of guiding a car key around an Ordinance Survey map that instilled fear and awe in my brother and I. He would prop the map up on the bonnet of our car, the drizzle-laden North-Easterly winds whipping it out from under him until he had it pinned with rocks. He would point at the 'suggested route' and instead would drag 'the magic key' towards a cluster of such tightly-packed contours that it looked like the skin of a chain-smoking 75-year-old Floridian. All I could usually see of my brother's face under his yashmak-like Peter Storm was the glint of panic in his eyes.

We both knew what was coming next.

'Now the map seems to suggest we go along this meadow here' he would say, passing the key tantalizingly close to a flat riverbed area, 'but I'm inclined to think that if we just cut up this road, and go along here', jabbing at the angry-looking contours while my brother and I look at him in growing alarm, 'here's where we might be able to cut across and make these two suggested five-mile walks in to something a little more interesting'. We knew that to mean a marathon 10 mile Man vs Wild survival challenge with the outside chance of a Cadbury's creme egg at a village shop or a shandy and lemonade at the Miner's Arms if we made it back to the car park. Both of us wondering why we weren't at home watching the Waltons along with the rest of humanity.

My Mum would be sitting in the car, shielded from the weather, listening to the Archers on the radio until the last possible moment.

We certainly ended up fit though.


I remember our first ever 'Double Games' at secondary school. We went for a cross-country run, up past the hockey pitch, further even than the athletics track, a piece of school turf so remote we called it the 'North Pole'. Past the 'bog fields' and then for good measure up a delightfully steep and deliberate hill. It was probably about 3 miles all told. I remember coming in in 2nd place and being genuinely puzzled at the tattered wrecks of humanity who collapsed into the changing rooms later that day. Ex-friends looking at me with pure hatred 'you could've waited with us ya cow.'

That was when I was fit.

Now I get it. Now when I run it feels like my lungs are going to burst through my nose in pursuit of oxygen. My legs feel like they weigh 100lbs each. Training has made it easier, but it's only 3 weeks to the race and I know that I will be no way near fit enough to do it without pain, let alone effortlessly. I would love to be able to do the race and enjoy it. I would love to have trained enough so that doing the race and having fun with it would be my reward. To be able to do the race like LK, and breeze through the disciplines.

My husband, the pre-pubescent teenage girl.