Do you know where…

..Bank Street is?

This was the question I was asked by an elderly couple as I was marching home from town this afternoon. I paused and thought, I’d heard of it, but had no idea where it was. Quickly I realised that I have Google maps on my phone and offered to look it up.

Slowly the internet started and I searched for Bank Street. It found it quickly and it turns out it was the street parallel to the one we were on. They thanked me and wandered off happily.

It struck me that I walk along Bank Street several times a week but had never registered what it was called. If they had said it was the street with the Post Office, Vanilla, Oxygen or even the strange Caribbean shop then I would have been able to direct them straight to it. But, I never asked them what they were looking for and never gave them a chance to say that they wanted a nice hot chocolate in Vanilla…if I’d given them a chance I could have directed them to Sumersault  (my new favourite coffee shop…even though I’ve only been once).

I know my way around all the shops in Rugby and the charity shops are my markers, but I realised that I pretty much only know the name of our street and not much beyond. We have friends round the corner and I know how to get there and know their door is green with semi stained glass…but not the road name.

It got me wondering about why that is? Ultimately it is because I don’t need to. I know how to get to my friends, to the supermarket, to Church without having any idea what street it is on. I have never had to post mail to anywhere in Rugby and if I did it would only take two seconds to find on Google or postcode finder. And today I had my trusty phone to direct others to their destination.

My smart phone provided me with the answer, but it has not caused my inability to noticed streets…without my phone I would still know places by markers. The worldwide web provides me with the answers when I haven’t paid attention to such details. Ultimately I fear that my mind is naturally disinclined to remember street names and in the days when people relied on remembering streets I would have been lost at every turn. I could never be a taxi driver…my customers would hate me!

I focus on the destination rather than the route…is that a personal trait, a generational trait or a human trait? I have no idea and am not planning on researching it. But no doubt the couple I directed thought I was stuck in the instant-info world, when I do not even know what the next street along is called. I certainly questioned my lack of knowledge!

Can you resist?

The haribo advert is a child sat in an empty room with a chair, a plate and a haribo sweet. They are told if they don’t eat it, they can have another one when the lady returns. All the children try, but of course they all give in and eat it before the ladies return. The point? Children can’t resist haribo. However, it made me think of the tears after filming by the children who weren’t allowed an extra sweet.

The experiment is hardly new or novel. It has been done with marshmallows in order to test impulsive needs. Children see what in front of them and react to that. No matter how hard they try, children cannot keep control on the long term positive of restraining themselves. Children are impulsive and react to their current needs and preferences without considering the consequences. Again, I wonder how many screaming children left the laboratory demanding their extra marshmallow. The significance of that extra marshmallow only when it was being denied to them.

However, I have another theory. These are not children that cannot control their ability to wait, that cannot restrain themselves for five minutes because they are naturally impulsive. As a young child my siblings and cousins would have competitions at my Grandma’s: we were all given a jelly baby and the last one to survive would get an extra one. However, we had to put them in our mouth so we had the added temptation of chewing and tasting. However, very quickly we learnt to stick it in our cheek and leave it there until everyone else had given up. The winner would get a sweet and we would carry on with whatever we were doing. Obviously this was not in a controlled environment, but the point is we focussed on the future consequences.

Our Grandma’s game could have been very different, she could have waited for a winner and then presented us all with an extra sweet so everything was fair, especially because of the age differences. However, it would not have taken many rounds of this game before we all chomped away quickly so we could all get our next sweet. It worked because the consequence was real.

And, so my theory (completely untested and from someone with only an AS in psychology) is that children give in because they are used to instant gratification and appeasement. Perhaps these children were used to getting what they wanted even if they didn’t do what they had promised. Parents that had begged children to behave in order to get a toy or sweets and had bought them to stop the tantrum that would/did erupt when it was withdrawn due to their behaviour. Perhaps these children who poked and prodded their marshmallow were not struggling but calculating the truth in the request. After weighing up the possibilities these children decide that experience has taught them they will get another one anyway…especially if they have tried to not eat it.

I know that there is a difference between leaving a child alone in an empty room with only a sweet and a small group of children fighting it out to restrain themselves the longest. But, surely the principle remains…children can be taught restraint just as much as they can be trained to eat now, think later.

I would love to know what the psychologists and parents did after the experiment. Did they hand out extra sweets to all the children at the end or just those who had accomplished the task? If they did follow their own instructions, did the children see that some had managed it? Or did children think the extra sweet had been a lie so they had been right to eat it? How many parents consoled their children by buying them a whole bag of marshmallows to make up for the extra one they failed to get?

Could children resist if the consequences mattered? I think this is a question that follows all the way through adolescence and adulthood, if people do not see real consequences, why would they consider their actions?

The Royal Brick

With the Jubilee fast approaching I feel it is only fair to write about the loyal royal member of the Clayton/Naish families. This royal has been steadfast for the past twelve years. The relationship started with my father who cared for the long lost royal until he regained his confidence. My middle sister hated the involvement of a royal and would hide from her friends whenever he was nearby…she did not want to be associated with him, despite the transformation he had had.

My father eventually decided that the responsibility of the royal needed to be passed down a generation and Murray and I became its loving friends. He kept us company on the long journeys backwards and forwards from university to home, he made our friends fall in love with him on short dashes for hot chocolate in Pittenweem.

Of course amongst the ups there have also been the downs. He fell violently ill on a trip home from Coventry, when I was in charge of his care, his limbs are no longer as limber as they used to be and we have to take great care when we are out in groups to ensure he is not bumped or bashed. But, the oddities and failings of him have provided him with such a strong character!

We fell truly in love with him. However, all royals get older and need to leave. The time is fast approaching that our family Royal will have to move on in the next few months and we will sad to see him go.

Indeed, our Royal friend is a Volvo 240 and is well into its twenty second year of life. The name came from the deep blue colour, the cream leather seats and of course its shape (three bricks stuck together, just like toddlers draw). It is huge and old, but spacious and comfy. It guzzles petrol, but cost us nothing. It rarely breaks, but when it does the exhaust falls off! Despite its age our friends have come to love it after only one journey! We secretly look forward to finding a car with a little less rust and fewer years on the road, but the royal brick has served us well and we will be sad when he leaves us at the end of this year.

GOLD Reunion

In 2008 I travelled to South Africa with 5 women I had met for a total of three weekends. We spent a month living, working, travelling and at times even relaxing with each other. We had gone out on a GOLD expedition (Guiding Overseas Links with Development) and were training Brownies , Guides and Leaders about human trafficking, self-esteem, drug abuse and relationships. We met loads of amazing people and hopefully made a real difference to the people we met and worked with. By the time we arrived back you would not believe that we had barely known each other before setting off because we returned as a solid, strong and supportive team who could face almost anything together.

However, it has taken four years for us all to be together again. There have been three reunions since our return but we are spread out from Cornwall to Scotland and so not everyone has been able to make them all. Finally we managed to do it last weekend and very quickly we returned to the team we arrived home as.

The first night was just sitting, chatting and catching up on several years. Saturday saw us being cooked a proper English breakfast and eating together…with a skype link connecting us to one of our South African friends. The rain delayed our decision making but before long we were gathering chocolate dig, biscuits and hot cross buns and piling into the cars. Every time we stopped there was a quick stealing of food from one car to another as many of us suffer from a sweet tooth!

We had a long first drive to look at a small cavern in the side of a hill…where our leader stepped into a mud puddle in the dark and spent the rest of the day squelching with a wet foot. Next we headed to an underground cave and were boated along with various descriptions of the lead mines we were travelling along and the caverns we were passing. Another drive took us to a high point of the Peak District with amazing views only a short distance away…it was windy so we decided against that and headed to the nearest village for afternoon tea and chips. Unfortunately the cafe did not believe that ‘the customer is always right’ and refused to serve children’s meals to the semi-hungry members of our group.

But our day did  not finish there…we headed to the supermarket to buy dinner. For many this would be the most boring part of the day but we suddenly felt as if we were back in South Africa deciding what vegetables we would all eat and wandering aimlessly down every aisle despite having a list. Two of us were quickly demoted to pushing the trolley as we could not be trusted to choose things…perhaps this was proven as we sneaked cat food and smurf shampoo into the trolley. Then it was back to Sheffield to cook and eat before I was rushed to the train station (I had to be at work the next day) and the rest got dressed up and headed out for teapot cocktails.

For many this will seem like a random collection of pointless activities, but for me it was a brilliant weekend that helps symbolise the amazingness of Guiding. People who barely know each other can be thrown together with only Guiding connecting them and come out as a strong team and friends. Instead of hiding inside because of the wind and rain like most people Guiders will go outside and travel around random activities to create a unique and wonderful day.

It reminds me of a well known saying – “Guiding is like a ship, because when we all work safely together we can sail safely home”. We learnt not just to work together, but to become a group who will always be connected by an experience many will never have the chance to have.

In 2008 I set off with a group I didn’t know but four years later I cannot wait for the next reunion!

The downside of Cheesecake

I love cheesecake…baked or unbaked, fruit or chocolate, spiced or plain, small or large, sticky or set, cream or gelatine. My GCSE Food Technology project was cheesecake (as was my little sister’s – great minds think alike (she actually hadn’t realised I had)). I have made plenty of cheesecakes in my few years of baking maturity and have a few favourite recipes. When catering for my parents 25th wedding anniversary I made canape cheesecakes by spooning topping onto ginger nut biscuits. As I said I love cheese cake.

However, recently I was reminded of the downside to cheesecake. It’s occasional inability to do what it is meant to. I was making a very simple cheesecake that was supposed to set in 2 hours: 4 hours later it was still runny, 12 hours it looked set but had to be spooned onto plates, 24 hours later it still needed spooning for eating. I don’t often make cheesecake for no reason and so if it doesn’t work it usually causes a panic for the event it was designed for. The runny cheesecake may have tasted wonderful but cannot be served to proper adults and so I very quickly had to make a brand new dessert…luckily apple crumble only takes a few minutes.

Cheesecake has done this to me before. A baked one decided to collect blobs of cottage cheese at the bottom making it look unappetising and taste of cottage cheese. Another baked one wasn’t cooked on the inside but was overcooked on the outside creating a weird consistency and a burnt outside. And of course gelatine or not, cheesecakes sometimes decide not to set.

Successful cheesecake is one of the creamiest, flavourful and best dessert that can be served…but a back up idea is always useful for the random time it has a mind of its own and doesn’t do what it is meant to.

Adult Talk

Last night Bear’s Godparents joined us for dinner. It was a manic afternoon of tidying the house and preparing the meal. This rush was not helped by me deciding suddenly that I wanted to cook foccacia bread as a starter and then discovering that the cheesecake hadn’t set and I had to send Bear shopping for crumble ingredients.

Luckily, the meal went down really well, even though there was far too much toad in the hole and we all almost exploded. But, what was most interesting was the conversation. The general ‘how are you?’ question included specific and penetrating questions that ensured the conversation was never only surface deep. We discussed all kinds of things from why only Christianity has Theology to our admiration for people who made complex topics simple to understand without dumbing them down.

The topic of conversation did tend to be about Christianity, jobs and Theology but was a very fulfilling and interesting evening of sharing and discussion. It is a way of conversing that is often missed by the younger generations. The idea of dinner parties and dinner conversation has disappeared and been replaced with house parties and general conversation. Conversation about world issues and big topics are no longer common place and those that do attempt to discuss the economy in any meaningful way are often seen as nerdy and boring. Yet last night was not boring and instead was engaging and stimulating. Bear and I have continued these discussions today and will no doubt continue to do so over the coming week as we think about them in more detail.

It has challenged me to stop being afraid of proper conversation and to stop hiding behind surface conversations. If people aren’t interested then fine, but that doesn’t mean I should be afraid of trying. I hope to become far better at opening interesting conversations that engage and develop learning, instead of reserving my interests and questions for just Bear.

Snow No

In Sweden it snows a huge amount. The underfloor road heating means it doesn’t really settle and the cars have huge engines and metal tank attachments so they can off road in snow as deep as the car. In Britain the threat of snow causes fear and even a few flakes of snow causes immense disruption across the country. Our economy drops because no one can get to work, holidays are abandoned with the fear of no return and everyone panics about food shortages. Meanwhile the small children are excited by the prospect of snow, disappointed that the hype never lives up to the actual amount of snow and run outside to make snow angels, snow men and throw snow.

When do we stop enjoying the beautiful snow covered views and are instead filled with fear of the white! Children have it right…why panic, why complain, why fear it. It is softer than cotton wool and prettier than rain. If we get stuck at home…what a shame, we can have a snow day instead of sitting in an office wishing we were somewhere else. We wrap up and scowl at the cold outside, when if we just ran around and jumped and played we wouldn’t feel it.

I think it is when ‘maturity’ strikes and we become self-conscious of being noticed and so put on our scowl and complaints when we hear the news but secretly hope there is masses of snow that we can run round in. Of course when it comes we feel that we cannot enjoy it and instead scowl and complain about all the negatives the snow brings. Adults focus so much on the negatives that they often forget the positives whereas children see only the positives. I’m sure it is the children who have a healthier view of life: one where you can make the best of things and enjoy anything.

I say this curled up in my house, disappointed that training was cancelled and dreading the idea of going outside. But at the same time being upset there wasn’t enough snow to make a snowbear and hide it in the Freezer for Bear! Thankfully I haven’t fully reached adulthood yet!

The Youf of Today

We hear the older generations complaining about the undisciplined and uncaring youth. We hear the younger generations complaining about the older generations who are up tight and don’t understand. But surely when the older generation were the younger generations they were viewed as the rebellious outcasts. And no doubt as the younger generation gets older they will complain bitterly about the younguns.

I have worked with children since I was a teenager and worked with teenagers since I stopped being a teenager. I have mainly encountered children and teenagers who are usually well behaved, sensible, willing to listen and wanting to enjoy the activities you put on offer. This doesn’t mean I have only worked with middle class children and teenagers who have had easy lives. I have encountered young people from all walks of life including several with difficult financial and social backgrounds, even in the middle class areas that I had lived.

But there is another side to all of the teenagers I have encountered. The side that wants to escape the restraints of the school regime. This is shown in the times they ignore you, almost bounce off the walls, get annoyed at the slightest thing and seem to be the opposite of what they sometimes are.

I still remember being a teenager and know that I was not a cool one. My friends once stole my shoe, filled it with sand and turned it into a shoe garden during lunch break. We cleaned our form tutors  rusty car in return for iced buns. We were clearly not the coolest in school and definitely not in the top of the pecking order. I did well at school, didn’t really get into trouble and did have friends. But we still played up in our own little way. One day of hyperactivity saw a friend get detention for singing…we had been threatened that if we spoke and we had decided singing didn’t count. Funny but still disruptive and disrespectful.

I guess what I am trying to say is that it is so easy to look at teenagers from difficult backgrounds or simply the generations below us and consider the way they behave inappropriate. When in fact they are just like any other teenager (perhaps slightly more exaggerated) but blame it on other things instead of recognising that they are just teenagers with a little spirit.

Bear leaves the Cave

As many of you know Bear has been struggling to find a job since he graduated. Like the millions of other unemployed young people he has found this really hard because he wants so badly to be doing something productive instead of spending 40 hours a week writing applications.

Last Friday he disappeared for a ‘chat’ with a local Christian networking charity. This Tuesday he disappeared before 7am and didn’t arrive home until almost 6pm, he did the same on Wednesday and the same today (Thursday). He has become their full time intern in only a few days. He has been organising their website, updating blurbs and pages, researching global prayer points amongst other things. So far he has thoroughly enjoyed it and is really looking forward to future weeks even though he has to emerge from his cave while it is still dark.

The downside is that the charity is too small to actually pay him so he is working for nothing. He is still applying for jobs, still hoping that something appears soon so he can join the real world of the earning masses.

The other downside is that  Bear is out of the house for the whole day, something that hasn’t happened since we met. As students you spend a long time working from home or procrastinating from home. As a children’s worker I spend a lot of time at home planning and preparing and as a seeker of jobs Bear spent a lot of time at home job hunting. So it is very strange not having a Bear prowling around the house all the time and not making me hot drinks when I need them.

But the downsides do not make this any less exciting. Bear would prefer to be working for nothing than to be stuck at home feeling useless. And, when Bear does get a paid job he will be out of the house all day, so it was going to happen anyway. And on the plus side he is learning new skills and being given responsibilities that will help in shine in those dreaded job applications. He is working for a wonderful charity, so is actually doing something really worthwhile. He is reminding himself what it means to get out of bed before 7am everyday.

Basically I am over the moon for him and hoping that his dedication and hard work opens doors into a job he can be really happy in.

Becoming an Old Lady

Yesterday a craving started, one that did not cease. It took one word to start me craving and today I finally gave in to it. The craving was for…scones with cream. Of all the things to obsess about scones should not be top of the list. Chocolate, a wee tipple, things that are bad for you, at 23, these are the thing I should crave.

It will not be surprising that I do not lead the most exciting life and I feel the need to lay the blame at someone’s feet. Here are a few of my options:

My Mother – she forced us to clean and taught us how to cook at a young age, or at least that’s how we saw it. By the age of twelve I was already able to make a full roast dinner and crumble for pudding…at school we were just beginning to learn how to boil a kettle (not even to make a cup of tea). When most people have finished exams or an essay they go out and treat themselves but my idea of recovery is to tidy my room and bake something for people. It was my mother gave me the capability to be a house keeper from a young age. She was the one who encouraged the cleaning and cooking.

My sisters – both are far cooler than I have ever been. Perhaps I saw their sense of style and number of friends and just gave up on it all. I could never compete with their looks (or at least didn’t understand how to apply make up), can’t do anything except straighten my hair and still need a second opinion on what clothes are cool and go together. It is no wonder that the idea of getting dressed up and make up-ed is not my idea of fun.

St. Andrews – instead of the traditional drinking atmosphere it has tea drinking at its core….or at least my group of friends had it at their core. A night out was pizza, chocolate and a film in someone’s room, an afternoon trip was visiting someone for a baking session and then demolishing the produce and a laugh was having a flour fight. St. Andrews tricked us all into early ageing because they made us think it was normal. They gave us a shared dream to be 73 by the age of 23 and didn’t show us an alternative.

Myself – perhaps the only person I can blame is myself. My mother taught us everything we needed to know, but my sisters resisted the idea of cleaning or the ability to learn to cook for as long as they could…I’m still not sure one of my sisters has ever made biscuits without making it too sticky or too floury. It was my choice to listen and to enjoy what she was showing us. My sisters did try to explain curling your hair and why 90% of your money needed to be spent on foundation and eye liner. Even though they had more fashion sense, they did try to help me become ‘cool’. It was my fault for ignoring their pleas and not understanding the jargon. St. Andrews cannot be blamed either: I chose to be there precisely because of the atmosphere. It was my choice to live as a retired person during my student years.

Yes, I think I was offered a hand here and there, but, ultimately I can only blame myself for craving afternoon tea in the way an elderly couple desire afternoon tea in their retirement home in Devon do. I embraced it in St. Andrews and shall continue to embrace the retired part of me. At least it means I do not need to fear old age as so many people do: I already live it here and now.