Doris on courses

I was never lucky enough to go to university. If I’m honest, I never gave it much thought at the time. Not as many women went to university in those days  and, particularly in my line of work, having a degree was not the be all and end all. It was the same with most women of our generation. None of my friends were university educated and it’s not held us back. We’ve all done alright for ourselves, in our own ways.

Nowadays of course it’s very different. Everyone goes to university and gets a degree. Every summer DBLW takes on a student, part-time, to provide holiday cover for Flo (not for me because I never go on holiday and, in all honesty, neither does Flo. She just sits at home and puts me to the trouble of arranging cover for her). These days, judging by their CVs, it seems that every young girl that applies is a would-be Mary Archer. They’re all doing degrees of one type or another and you wouldn’t believe the subjects they study nowadays. I had a CV come through the other day: Computer Studies and Drama at some university I’d never heard of. It’s hard to see how the two subjects complimented each other but the last thing I need is histrionics every time the till acts up, and DBLW customers can do without jazz hands thank you very much.

It seems these ‘alloy degrees’ are more commonplace than you’d imagine. Margaret Chaff was telling me the other day that her nephew is studying Marine Biology and Politics at the University of Felixstowe.

“Fish don’t get the vote,” I joked to Margaret.

“He has an option to switch to French in his second year,” she explained.

“Would he replace the Marine Biology or the Politics?” I asked.

“Neither,” she said. “He’d do straight French for his second year and then he’d take a year out, working abroad, before returning to Felixstowe for his final year.”

“So he’d drop the Politics and the Marine Biology?” 

“That’s right, Doris,” she said.

I realised I’m behind the times and decided to let it go.

“Spending a year in France at your parent’s expense. Can’t be bad,” I said.

“Algeria,” she said. “Felixstowe University has a reciprocal arrangement with the University of Bordj Bou Arréridj.”

“Well, it’s all changed since I was a girl,” I said. “That’s all I know.”

“We went to the University of Life,” agreed Margaret.

“After graduating from the School of Hard Knocks,” said Flo, barging into our conversation.

“What degree did Kirsty do, Flo?” asked Margaret.

“Macrami and tourism,” said Flo, brightly, as if it is was impossible to conceive of two more useful subjects in the entire world.

“She took basket weaving as an option in her first year,” she added.

“That’s good,” said Margaret, nodding approval.

“I’m out of touch with things,” I said, not thinking it for a moment.

“Me too,” agreed Margaret, not meaning it.

“That makes three of us,” said Flo.

I looked at Margaret. We each knew what the other one was thinking. We looked at Flo. She didn’t.

A little flutter

Appleton Marsh caught a dose of World Cup fever today and DBLW was not immune.

When it was quiet, Flo nipped out to the bookmakers with two crisp five pound notes. Of course, for me there was only one team, BRAZIL, and for Flo, ever the patriot, it was ENGLAND.

So imagine my surprise when she returned and told me that she had put her money on North Korea.

“Well they’ve been in the news a lot lately,” was her rationale.

“But not for football,” I said, incredulous.

“They were such good odds; two hundred to one,” Flo defended herself.

“Yes. There’s a reason for that,” I said.

She looked at me quizzically.

“Because they’re not going to win,” I explained, slowly.

Her face was blank.

“It’s like Jack and Beanstalk. You’ve come back with a handful of beans,” I said, waving the betting slip under her nose.

For some reason, Flo seemed happy with that.

“Oh, thank goodness,” she said, smiling. Relieved.

I smiled as well.

We must have smiled at each other for over a minute.

Brazilian Ladies

Looking at my Blog Statistics, I can’t help noticing just how many people are drawn to my site using the search term ‘Brazilian Ladies’.

I’m not sure that I’m exactly what they had in mind when, no doubt salivating, they typed those words into Google. I never like to disappoint anyone and my hope is that members of this ‘surfing’ niche hang around long enough to explore the woman behind the dried up husk-like exterior, to discover my inner beauty.

Beauty is such a transient and unimportant thing. Dorothy Parker said, “Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.” It is so true and, if you arrived here via the search term ‘Brazilian Ladies’, I hope you’ve read this far and are now thoroughly ashamed of yourself. And I hope you will make amends by reading more about a real Brazilian Lady and her life in Appleton Marsh (which doesn’t have a beach but does have a leisure centre that has won awards).

If I was fifteen years younger…

I have just watched the most wonderful documentary about the young choirmaster Gareth Malone. How refreshing in these Hello OK days of faux celebrities that someone like Gareth should be given a platform by the BBC.

What a talented fellow he is and what a shining example he sets for all of those knife-wielding hoodies on sink estates up and down the country. He’s a Bournemouth lad, which isn’t too far away and, apparently he holidays in Cornwall which means… he must pass close by Appleton Marsh from time to time. This is an open invitation for Gareth and his wife, to visit me, here in Appleton Marsh, and to partake in a pot of tea and a bite to eat – GM food I suppose. We will go to Tea Hee’s which is on the High Street and he can tell me all about his life as an animateur.

Mirrors

Flo asked me today, “Doris, why do you always smile when you look at yourself in the mirror?”

“Do I?” I replied. My “do” was in the deepest voice I could muster without gender reassignment and seemed all the deeper set against the crystal shatteringly high “I” that followed. It was a theatrical response but it left Flo, sans doute, that she had my full attention.

“Always. You smile when you look in the mirror.”

“Flo, you are infuriating,” I said. “All you did there was to rearrange the words, saying the same thing and leaving me none the wiser.”

“Alright,” conceded Flo, realising she’d short-changed me. “Just try it. Look into the mirror.”

Intrigued, and a little hesitant, I approached the mirror hanging over the fireplace. It was just as Flo had said (twice). As soon as I caught sight of myself in the mirror, my face transformed, from a dour, life-beaten husk of a physiog into exactly the same thing but with a grotesque, Sterident smile.  And, try as hard as I might, I couldn’t stop smiling.

“See!” declared Flo, with punch-the-air triumphalism.

My cheeks were beginning to ache. Still the mirror held me under its spell.

“It’s okay,” laughed Flo. “Everyone does it.”

“Really?” I said, through gritted teeth. I looked like a cartoon cat with a broad, fixed grin, just before its teeth drop out, one by one.

“It’s because it makes you look younger,” she continued. “That’s why people smile when they look at themselves in the mirror. I do it too.”

I began to wonder if I had ever really seen myself at all. Many years ago a street artist attempted my cariacature. It was rubbish and looked nothing like me; and I told him so. “Consider a career change,” I told him. “Motorway maintenance is undemanding,” I said, meaning to be helpful but he took against me. I digress. Now I’m wondering if the reason I didn’t recognise the face in the picture, was because it wasn’t smiling. What if, right this minute, a former street artist is digging a trench on the hard shoulder of the A42, all because of me?

“Do you do it? Smile I mean?”

“Of course I do. Look.”

Flo stepped alongside me and faced into the mirror, and she smiled.

And there we stood. Two idiotic friends, smiling at themselves like simpletons. Not looking youthful exactly but both afraid of consequences if they stopped.