Home Alone

It has now been four months since my wife returned to full time work and I became a 'househusband'. Neither of us planned it that way, but as my wife can't drive and the school run is now a 25-mile round trip along country roads, our options were rather limited.

I decided to embrace my role and Googled the term househusband. One of the first things I saw was a link to a Daily Mail article: 'You Can Never Fancy a Man Who Becomes a House Husband.' Apparently, pink marigolds on men are a turn-off, unless you like that sort of thing (there are probably websites).

At first I had trouble adjusting to the sudden change. I was used to being the breadwinner (albeit a very cheap loaf of Kingsmill sliced white) and felt as if I had somehow let the side down. However, I was hardly idle. On an average morning, I took my sons to their schools, popped over to my office to deal with any book orders, did some food shopping, then drove home and began cleaning the house.

I valued my wife's work when she stayed at home, so why did I feel at such a loss? Gender conditioning, I suppose.

In spite of this, I was happy for my wife. She seemed to be doing very well in her new job and came home energised and full of gossip. My anecdotes were rather more mundane: "I cleaned the oven, but I'm not using Mr Muscle again."

Fortunately, I have started to get a more balanced perspective on the situation and accept that even if my current existence is very dull, it is entirely necessary. Those ovens won't clean themselves.

There has also been another change during the last month. My mother has suddenly become very frail and is increasingly dependent on me, both practically and emotionally.

The practical side is easy. I don't mind buying the Werther's Originals or dealing with the bills from Damart, but the emotional support is more challenging, as my mother can be relentlessly morbid to a point where I leave feeling thoroughly depressed. However, I know that when someone is virtually housebound, they need constant visits.

At least I will no longer hear about Vera's leg, which my mother would describe in graphic detail before I pleaded with her to stop. Vera is now in Florida with her daughter, for a long holiday. "She won't be coming back," my mother said, with barely-concealed relish.

Sometimes I can feel my mood sliding. When that happens, unless it's absolutely pissing down outside, I go for a walk. Being in the fresh air, smelling the damp earth and feeling the pale winter sun, clears away the cobwebs and puts everything in perspective. I don't what I'd do if I lived in Neasden. Perhaps I'd go to Ikea and pretend I lived in one of the rooms.

These photos were taken during the last few weeks. I particularly like the one of a hat, which is a lost property item in Berwick Church. There's a story behind that picture.

Restless

During the summer I became quite discontented with my house (sadly not the one above), which felt smaller and noisier than ever. Outside, builders shouted, drilled and listened to hideous power ballads. Inside, my wife, sons and cats occupied every room except the main bedroom.

At one point I started viewing property websites and looked longingly at houses with spacious kitchens and gardens larger than a bath mat. Many of them had a study and a shed - catnip for a middle aged man - plus the en suite bathroom that my wife has yearned for all these years.

To add to the temptation, the houses weren't selling for any more money than the value of our home. If we could buy one of these houses (and somehow lose our cats during the move), how much better life could be. I could have that book-lined study I'd always dreamed about.

But the bubble always burst when I clicked on the maps and realised that there is a simple rule to purchasing a property in this area: unless you're blessed with a large sum of money, you can either have a small house in a good location, or a large home in a less desirable one. Invariably, whenever I saw a house I liked, there was a catch.

Also, many of the larger houses I saw conformed to Patrick Hamilton's snobbish but amusing description in a book I'm reading at the moment, Mr Stimpson and Mr Gorse:

'The houses were squat, two-storied affairs. Their fronts had all been most oddly treated. It looked as if the builder had had some sort of infantile sea-mania for shingled beaches, and that, to indulge this passion, he had, having covered the external walls with thick glue, used some extraordinary machine with which to spray them densely with small pebbles.

In the front gardens of most of these houses there were, in addition to sundials, countless images of Gnomes, Dwarfs, Fairies, Goblins, and Peter Pans - the inhabitants of Sispara Road having, it seemed, a strong turn of mind for the whimiscal, the grotesque and the beautiful.'


So for the time being, I am staying put in the unpebbledashed, gnome-free streets of Lewes, resigned to living in a terraced Victorian shoebox, but grateful to live in a town that is full of delights, with solid, unpretentious housing.

In a vague attempt to improve my fitness and leave my cramped surroundings behind, I've been going on long walks around Lewes. I have a particularly good pair of shoes that were originally designed for postmen (if you look carefully, you can see 'Royal Mail' embossed on the side) and they enable me to stride around the town at a speed that burns off a few calories and gets the heart racing.

The other day I explored the ruins of the Priory of St Pancras, which was built roughly 940 years ago:

 

There's nothing like a good ruin to put things into perspective, whether it's a Norman priory in Sussex or a deserted office block in Detroit. Ruins are humbling, or should be.

Last night, the Priory of St Pancras looked particularly beautiful as volunteers had lit over a thousand candles, all strategically placed either on the ground or in the nooks of the stone walls. It was quite magical.

(My only reservation was over the decision to lay a double row of lights, as it looked like one of those makeshift landing strips that feature in war films. When, at one point, I heard the drone of a light aircraft, I was worried that its confused pilot was about to make a descent. But that aside, it was a magical evening.)

As the sun set, a choir started singing Carmina Burana and I felt incredibly grateful that I lived in a town that did things like this. If my pokey, Victorian terraced house was the price that I had to pay for living in Lewes, it was probably one worth paying.

Also, at a time when so many people around the world have been displaced from their homes, it seemed absurd to be complaining about something so self-indulgent and trivial.

But when the car exhausts and builders' hammers get too much, I can faintly hear the quiet call of the garden gnomes whispering "Shed, conservatory, en suite bathroom, study, parking space, large kitchen, guest bedroom..." and a part of me weakens.


P.S - In response to Joan's comment, I have a very short video clip of the choir, which I've added. I didn't bother trying to film anything in the dark, but I hope this captures something of the evening's magic. Oh, and did I add that it was all free?

A Week in Instagram

I woke up this morning with a one pound coin and a fifty pence piece stuck to my back. I've no idea how they got there, but I'm not complaining.

The last week has been spent trying to expose my older son to a daily dose of sunlight, so that his vitamin D levels improve. He already walks as if he has rickets, but I think that's just him. If I ask him to walk normally, he gets very cross.

Our first trip took us to Ashdown Forest - the place that inspired the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. By sheer chance, we parked only a few minutes' walk from the memorial to A.A.Milne and E.H.Shephard, carefully placed in a setting that recalls this famous line:

"Wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing."

The forest appeared to be deserted and for a brief moment, it felt as if we had entered a lost idyll, but the discovery of a rather large bra hanging from a tree quickly changed the mood:

Did the bra's owner have to leave in a hurry, or was she suffering from some form of post-coital amnesia?

Sadly, I think I've got to the age where I'm more interested in unusual trees than abandoned underwear. I particularly liked this tree, which had a bark that reminded me of The Thing in the Fantastic Four:

The following day I explored Birling Gap at low tide, negotiating my way across hundreds of rocks covered in sharp periwinkles. After ten minutes, I realised that I was alone and wondered why most people were content to huddle together on a small stretch of beach, rather than seek out a deserted cove.

I walked along a wave cut platform, looking at the small rock pools that had formed in this transient, tidal environment, watching tiny wisps of fish nervously dart out of sight. As a boy, I could happily spend hours exploring the microcosm of a rock pool. As an adult, I find myself more preoccupied with thinking about what I should be feeling, and wondering why I'm not.

I find that a remote, empty beach quickly induces a sense of timelessness, as if I am the last human left at the end of the world. Is that a bit potty?

Sometimes the isolation can be therapeutic, providing a chance to see things in perspective without any distractions, but this time all I could think about was an annoying tune that had popped into my head:

"Didn't we have a lovely time, the day we went to Bangor..." Maddening.

On the way back, I took a rather average photo on my phone, which Instagram later transformed into something that vaguely resembles a magic lantern slide.

As I said in an earlier post, I have become a huge fan of Instagram. If you have an account, you'll find me listed as phil._.b (the dots and underscore are vital). Every photo in this post is from Instagram, apart from the bra.

I haven't quite worked out the Instagram etiquette yet, but I generally work on the rule that I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

In contrast to the stark isolation of the beach, I enjoyed a visit to a local village fete, in a place called Glynde:

Almost everything you could want was there: a Punch and Judy show, stalls selling bric a brac that would remain unsold, a tent with a tea urn and a selection of fruit cakes made by the ladies of the parish. Only the local vicar was missing, with the obligatory appeal to restore his organ.

Glynde is an idyllic village, seemingly frozen in time. Many of the cottages are, I'm told, owned by a local aristocrat and rented out. This may strike many as an absurd anachronism, but the reality is a village of beautifully maintained properties rented at affordable prices.

I think I'd rather have noblesse oblige than 'shareholder value'.

My favourite building is the blacksmith's, which is still a working forge:

Later that day, my wife and I went for dinner with some friends in Hove. As I walked across the station footbridge and looked below, my Instagram alarm button started ringing again:

I liked the symmetry of the trains and felt pleased with the shot, but am I now going to start seeing Instagram opportunities everywhere?

I blame my phone, which continues to exceed expectations. For example, when I saw a Ladybird resting on some berries yesterday, I assumed that a close-up would only be possible with a proper camera. Fortunately, the phone coped admirably:

In the pre-smartphone era, I wouldn't have had a camera with me on a short walk around the outskirts of Lewes. But now that I have a decent phone and an Instagram account, I'm learning to look with fresh eyes at the familiar:

This is an abandoned quarry. I love the contrast between the rocks and the primordial-looking ferns. It's a strange place and whenever I hear the swoop of wings in the distance, I almost expect to see a pterodactyl.

This is a rather odd picture because it looks as if it has been heavily manipulated, digitally, but in fact I've barely altered it. The field in the background is Landport Bottom - a place populated by dog walkers and nervous sheep. It's hard to believe that history was made here, 751 years ago.

From Landport Bottom, a wooded path leads to the top of an old chalk quarry. I never tire of the view of the Weald and the Ouse river, meandering into the distance:

In the evening, teenagers come up here, light camp fires and drink copious amounts of beer. So far, none of them have tumbled over the cliff in the dark, but I expect that there have been some near misses.

After doing so much walking, I will hopefully sleep soundly tonight. If I'm really lucky, I may wake up with another £1.50 stuck to my back.

Away With the White Horses

It has been an odd couple of days. Yesterday, a man turned up at work on a white horse, as if he was inviting me to join him on a quest. I would have said yes, but I was busy trying to move ten thousand books to a new building, one car load at a time.

I never found out what he wanted.

In the evening, a friend casually told us that he had done the voiceover for an advert that was voted the greatest UK television commercial of all time. Why hadn't he mentioned it before? I'm still telling people that I was on BBC Radio Five 14 years ago.

This morning I woke up to the sound of horses hooves and as I stood on one leg to place our broken blind in the small gap between the roller and ceiling, I saw some men in chainmail walk past. Then I remembered that it was the 750th anniversary of the Battle of Lewes.

The actual anniversary was a few days ago. At least, that's what everyone seems to think, but didn't we change our calendar in 1752 and lose eleven days?

Today, the town ground to a halt and a group of volunters recreated the Battle of Lewes, following the original route of 1264:

It was all good fun, unlike the original battle.

I always mixed feelings at events like these. On the one hand, I enjoy living in a town that cherishes its past (I imagine that in a hundred years' time, Lewes will look almost the same as it does today). But I also feel conscious of being, as the song goes, on the outside looking in. Perhaps I'll never be a Lewesian.

But enough of Lewes. This is supposed to be a book blog, so I'll move on to some of my favourite discoveries from last week, beginning with this striking frontispiece:

It comes from a 1920s book on aircraft, which was surprisingly worthless. I threw away the book but kept the frontispiece.

The next illustration has a very odd caption underneath:

"A quick desperate wriggle and his legs were over the board and the rest of him followed anyhow." Well, yes.

This illustration is from a rather disturbing 1920s book about the mind:

It comes from a chapter called "Cretins and Dunces", in which the author expresses view that weren't out of step with the times. The widespread enthusiasm for eugenics shocks us today, but of course it enjoyed a wide range of supporters that included Churchill, H G Wells, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, John Harvey Kellogg and Marie Stopes.

Finally, two completely bonkers 1960s sci-fi novels:

Androids with whips? For some reason, that reminds me of this atrocious song.

As for this, perhaps it was a thoughtful novel about eugenics that was given a less than enlightened cover treatment to boost sales. I don't know. I can safely say that I will never read this book to find out.

"In Full Pursuit of the Uneatable" - Boxing Day Morning in Lewes

This morning I walked into town and saw a side of Lewes that was very different from its 'Islington-on-the-Downs' image:



The 'meet' took place outside the White Hart Hotel, where Thomas Paine once used to attend meetings of the Headstrong Club.

On the balcony, a man with a faulty megaphone made a barely audible speech that seemed to go "Maaah the msssss, here a waaahh hmmm wehhhhwer...Royal family...Ennnaahhh tolllpum mahhh our country...mahhhh in forhhhh bin ohhhhh...Rule Britannia!" The crowd applauded the final words, but there was a ripple of embarrassment.

The horn sounded and a procession of hunters, horses and hounds rode off, ostensibly in pursuit, but perhaps, also in flight from the 21st century. Olde England. The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate.

Once the last rider had passed, I walked past Lewes Castle and returned to my hovel.


NB - The title of this post comes from Oscar Wilde's quote about foxhunting: "The unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable"; but I've been assurred that since the law was changed, the riders now merely follow a fox-scented trail.

This Afternoon

It is an oppressively hot afternoon. Outside, an ice cream van is playing Greensleeves to empty streets and my youngest son is recreating jungle warfare in our neglected garden. The house seems curiously barren since we handed Maisy the dog back to her owners.

(Maisy's departure wasn't quite as straighforward as I'd anticipated. After a seemingly emotional reunion with her family, she ran away the following day and was discovered sitting on our doorstep. I can only assume that this and subsequent escapes were prompted by happy memories of long walks and Tesco's Finest dog food)

It has been a sociable weekend. Yesterday I spent a very pleasant afternoon at the Coal Hole in the Strand with a couple of friends from university. We argued about Twitter, agreed about the Olympics opening ceremony and recalled a rather unpleasant encounter I had with a vicar who worked in a boys' home.

We ended up in the Chandos where, to my horror, a young Australian barmaid had never heard of a Pernod and lemonade. I felt like a man who had been released from prison after a very long stretch.

I felt slightly fragile this morning, but when a friend reminded me that this was the weekend for the wonderful Heritage Open Days scheme, we decided to visit St Michael's Church in Lewes:

On the outside, St Michael's is a pleasant but fairly unremarkable medieval church, right next to a main road. However, it contains one of Lewes's hidden gems: a beautiful walled graveyard, tucked away between the Castle and some old houses:


If ever I feel the need to get away from everything and enjoy an hour's solitude, then I come here. The bustling high street is only yards away, but there is an eerie quietness that evokes an older world and spiders' webs lie undisturbed.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,

Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

With Lewes Castle towering over the churchyard, you can enjoy the same view that Thomas Paine and his bride had, when they married here in 1771.

I wonder how much this view of St Michael's, from the top of the Castle, has changed in 241 years? I'd like to think that Thomas Paine would find 21st century Lewes reasonably familiar: