When I saw the blue/purple line emerge on the little white sick it was probably one of the life changing moments in my life ever. But we didn't trust that test so we got the more expensive one and yes the crossed blue lines appeared.
My doctor is very good but he is a bit of a glass half empty sort of chap so when I rocked up saying I was pregnant but had a bit of spotting what I would have normally described as period pain he was worried and refered me up to the Early Pregnancy Assessment Unit at the hospital.
10 days ago I had a scan that confirmed that the pregnancy was not ectopic but while we could the yolk sac (their words not mine) we couldn't see junior yet as s/he was too small.
Today I had another scan, we saw this
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8weeks2days "old" 16.6 milimetres long with a strong heartbeat.
The little blue cross was a life changing moment but now I can believe that it is really real.
Tristram Cary the composer and pioneer of electronic music was married to my Aunt Jane. I first met him in the late 80s when they came over from Australia to visit. He introduced us to Australian wine (which was just up and coming in Harrogate at the time) and what to appreciate in it. I got to know him a bit better when we stayed with him and my Aunt in Adelaide over Christmas of 92. I was still a student at the time and I had work to do on an astronomy essay, Tristram volunteered to vouch for me at the University Library as I needed some more information. After I had done my digging for references amongst the bookshelves he showed me around the University Campus and the nearby radio studios where he occasionally broadcast. I remember that we also visited the staff bar for a reviving drink before lunch there we talked about beer and sculpture. Tristram was a kind and convivial host, he took as a personal affront if our glasses were not charged with a drink of our liking.
His favourite pub in London was the French House on Dean Street, they have a rather nice restaurant upstairs. Whenever he and Jane were over they tried to have at least one meal with family there, these occasions were always a bit boozy, entertaining and gossipy.
In 2004 Tristram's work was the subject of a retrospective called Integrated Circuits on the Brighton Festival Fringe. There was an evening performance, both taped and live, of his electronic works from his early work including some done at the Radiophonic Workshop to more recent compositions, finishing with a live performance of Trios which was fascinating to watch. The next day we saw a double bill of films that he composed for; The Ladykillers and Quatermass and the Pit, The Ladykillers is still a wonderful film and Tristram's music is a huge part of that, he re scored the Boccherini quartet as a quintet for the five criminal masterminds. Quatermass and the Pit is a classic Hammer Horror you think you are going to laugh at the cheapo special effects but end up being engrossed and scared, if you are me. Tristram happily answered questions after the showing and then we went to the pub.
If you are British and had a telly during the 70s you almost have certainly heard his music many times as he composed the score to a cartoon version of a Christmas Carol. It seemed to be on every year when I was a child, I loved it, it was only 28 minutes long but managed to keep all the essential parts of the story, I would love to get a copy but it doesn't seem to have been released on CD. It is strange to find out that you know let alone related to worked on something that you adored as a child, strange but very thrilling.
My mobile ring tone is Tristram's version of the Dr Who theme tune. I asked him once how come he had ended up scoring the Daleks but not the theme tune to Dr Who? He told me that it was because that was how he and Ron Grainer had been commissioned for the series, Grainer got the first series, "An Unearthly Child", so got to adapt Delia Derbyshire's theme and he had got the "Daleks", it could have easily have been the other way round and he would have worked on the opening and closing music. I've got a CD of Tristram's music, signed natch, it would be great to hear it with the pictures; the music is sparse and scary far better than what we've got at the moment on Dr Who - lush, cloying, far too forward in the mix and as obvious as a mallet.
The last time I saw him was at his surprise 80th birthday party thrown for him by one of his cousins, it was a lovely day, the sun shone, Tristram was in fine fettle, family and friends came. There was cake . It was a great day.
Apart from a few months after I was born I have never lived anywhere where I could claim any family roots - until now. You see with Norfolk I have ancestry, which I didn't know until about 4 5 years ago, but one of my great grandmothers came from Holt. I know very little I'm ashamed to say, she was in service for a while as a cook, she ended up living in Kent although how she got there from Norfolk I don't know but she and my great grandfather (who was Irish and I don't know how and where they met either) did live in the west end of London for a while before World War I.
Looking for things to do today I suggested we go to Holt to have a look round, as far as I'm aware I have no family left there but I thought it would be interesting nevertheless to have a look see. Holt is a bit of a tourist trap, a posh tourist trap, it's full of boutiques, expensive sandwich shops, galleries and gourmet supermarkets, oohs sorry "food halls." Holt reminded me very much of a mix of the village my brother and his family live in, the touristy bits of Harrogate especially round the Crown Hotel and Masham which has a Spar shop with gourmet tendencies.
Apart from the tourist trap shops there doesn't seem to be that much of interest to see in Holt, we had a look at the war memorial, had lunch in a local pub, nice, not too expensive and didn't taste like it was "fresh from our freezer".
And then we left. I would be lying if I felt anything about the place, I'm not sure if you are supposed to in cases like these. I wouldn't want to live there and I wouldn't visit as a matter of course as it's not my sort of tourist destination.
So ancestral stomping grounds - meh I think without some family there to connect with they don't mean that much to me.
My mum has signed up for a degree course this week, all because she saw an ad in the local paper for affiliate degree courses at the local FE college, "The History of English", first two years at the local college the 3rd year at APU.
On Monday!
She has the required O and A levels, but she doesn't have the Doc Martins yet, or a year's supply of Pot Noodles. She also needs a poster of Che Guavara, A Viz character and an obscure indie band, on her walls. It's a tough job but fortunately she has me to help her. Especially when it comes to obscure indie bands.
She will have to learn to text, 10,001 things to do with a tin of baked beans, stop choosing wines and drinks on a taste basis but start choosing them on an alcoholic quantity to price basis. She will also have to know the difference between Westlife and McFly, when she finds that out that she can tell me cos I've not got the foggiest.
She will have to get stroppy, actually that's a banker she can do that now. I do draw the line at her getting a floppy scarf or carrying a teddy bear about, if that happens I'm ringing my brother, we'll sort something out.
Update 27 August 05
I've just been to lunch with my mum, she reminds me that she does have a Che poster, bought in Cuba no less, I should have remembered I was there with her when she bought it.
Also it may seem that I'm mocking her a little I'm not, I'm immensely pleased and proud of her she should do very well.
Not mine I hasten to add, but my Mother's. The lack of blogging action from me yesterday was caused by me going round to my Mum's to help her get on broadband. The drivers for the modem installed like a dream we attached the relevant cables signed in and then the trouble started I was able to download the Zone Alarm free firewall for her but the computer kept on prompting us to reconnect to the internet and the number of times got "cannot find server" was phenomenal. So we decided to contact the free help line to ensure that we hadn't don't anything when I rang the number on Mum's landline I could hardly hear the computerised voice because of churning and whirling of the internet it sounded bit like the noise that dial up makes. In the end I had make the call by mobile.
Anyway to cut a long and frustrating couple of hours short we had two configurations 1 with the microswitch in the wall socket then the signal splitter plugged into that, with the extension to the computer and the phone line coming out of that. The phone was clear, but absolutely no broadband what so ever, the computer didn't pick up a byte of a signal.
The other way round, with the signal splitter in the wall socket and the micro switch and the phone line coming out of that, the puter realised it was attached to the internet but kept asking to be reconnected every five seconds and the phone line had a lot of noise on it again.
I consulted with my brother who is a computer expert he has suggested new microswitches and a shielded extension cable but I was wondering whether anyone else has had this problem and came up with a different solution.
I'm at my Mum's again, this time to help her renew her virus protection subscription, not that she is not capable of doing it herself, oh no, Mum is a veteran computer user having first used one back in the days when they filled small rooms and spat out paper tape. But the Dr Norton website doesn't like her, it freezes when she is at the keyboard, this happened last year as well I had to take control of the keyboard to get the site to load. But hopefully this will be the last time I have to do it as she signed up to broadband today.
I went to the surprise 80th birthday party of my uncle Tristram Cary today in Clapham where his niece lives. She and her husband very kindly hosted the party. My mother and I went down by train, unfortunately we were held up by engineering works on the line, the train had just gone through Hitchen when it ground to a halt, the driver explained what the problem was, a hazard of travelling on a Sunday by train I suppose.
Mum fretted and complained, I can't see the point personally, I had left a message on Jane's mobile, there was nothing more we could do, it wasn't that hot so we were not suffering like those people on the high speed train the other day. My attitude is stop worrying about it, it is not as if we could do anything about it, settle back and start to contemplate the infinite. We got to the party eventually, unfortunately we missed the surprise part of it but it was still very good. Tristram's son John had arranged the catering and had the most fantastic birthday cake made.
It is an EMS synthesiser, a very early small and portable synthesiser that Tristram helped to develop.
Tristram
Appraisal Of The Day
..... and particularly irksome is his use of "10-4" in place of the more acceptable "yes, sir".
BBC2 are repeating The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon. I know, I know, I can hear you cry "but it was only one a few months ago if that!" But I for one am glad they are repeating it, because the films themselves are of such ordinary subjects and their lives the programmes are showing a remarkable record of mostly Northern Edwardian life.
Some of my family come from Lancashire (not something you say loudly if you lived in Yorkshire for 15 odd years!). Preston though, not Blackburn but even if the buildings were different the culture was not, Wakes weeks, the factories and the mills, their workers the food and their lives, so the programme has resonance for me although my Great Grandmother grew up on a farm not in a mill town.
I've still got relatives all over Lancashire, when we lived in Yorkshire we would occasionally go over the Pennines to either visit cousins or to go to Tommy Ball's in Blackburn. Tommy Ball's sold cheap shoes in an old mill. All the pairs of shoes were linked together by string, not through the eyelets but through holes pierced through the heels. The pairs were then hung over long poles. Each floor of Tommy Ball's would be full of long poles with thousands of pairs of shoes hung over them, untangling a pair you were interested in was often a fustrating process. I can't remember if I ever got any shoes there I doubt it as they didn't cut the mustard fashion wise. The reason why they were cheap was because they were the end of lines, the unsold stock of a few years ago, the fashion mishaps - court shoes in camouflaged pattern anyone?. But they sold the suede desert boots my Dad liked and as he had size 11 feet he was always able to get a few pairs.
Outside the mill, they had a stall selling the typical examples of Lancastrian cuisine, meat and potato pies, sarsaparilla and dandelion and burdock fizzy drinks.
I haven't been back in over twenty years but I bet they still haven't shifted the camouflage court shoes though!
Gratuitous photo of Tom Finney in his prime with Preston North End for my Mum!
It appears that my uncle is not the only musical relative I have down under. My cousin Chris is in a band that plays in and about Adelaide. Chris Dewin
Update the link to Chris's site seems to be down I will fix it when Jane gets back to Oz.
I've got round to adding some links to some of the blogs I read on a regular basis, I will add more as and when. I also added a link to Tristram Cary who is married to my Aunt Jane. Tristram wrote the film score to The Lady Killers and a lot of incidental music for Doctor Who in the 60's and 70's. Jane and Tristram are over in Blighty at the moment visiting family and friends.
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lighting the bbq
upstairs
Levi
Mum
ducklings
Levi
