Merry Christmas Twitter

Well, 2009 was the year I joined Twitter and me and it have become the proverbial pig + mud.

I like to read Tweets that are hilarious, inspiring, warm-hearted, informative and gossipy. Let's just say you've not let me down. In fact, you've hit all those sweet spots with amazing linguistic grace. So if you were just down the road, I'd be pushing a Christmas Card through your door. But you're not, you're all over the globe. But thanks to the world wide web, that no longer matters.

Here’s an animated eCard I’ve put together with lots of help from my partner Ash, for all the Twitter lovelies out there. And that means you handsome / beautiful (delete as appropriate). Enjoy.



For more gushing about the wonders of Twitter you’re welcome to read my very first blog post This Twitter Thing, where I do just that.

And to see more of Ash’s 3D work I invite you to visit the Push Creativity website.

Wordless Wednesday #6 by @Angpang

Wordless Wednesday #5 by @Angpang

Wordless Wednesday #4 by @Angpang

The Honest Scrap Blogger Award

Or alternatively: Nine Truths, One Lie

Update - The lie is now revealed, just scroll to the end...


Blogger Jamie Harding has awarded me an Honest Scrap Blogger Award through his esteemed organ, The Life and Times of a Househusband.

This may sound prestigious but, having read the small print, I prefer the term poisoned chalice.

The skinny is this: I have to reveal 10 truths about myself through my blog, then snare 10 other bloggers in the same trap.

Well, I'm going to tell nine truths and one lie. Guess the lie. Then I'll name a few other bloggers I feel deserve this award.

The Ten 'Truths'

1 - I can touch my nose with my tongue.

2 - In 1984 I stole a flannel. This was my brief flirtation with shoplifting. I felt the choice of item was anti-anti-establishment.

 3 - I was in labour with my second child for 1 hour 25 minutes. She was born within sight of Lincoln Cathedral on the night of a rare, blood red moon. She has a perfect spiral belly button. Shakespearean or wot?

4 - I was once threatened by a knife wielding, junkie, lesbian who'd just been released from prison. Let's call her 'Karen'. That was her name anyway. She looked like a zombie version of Limahl. I escaped thanks to an extensive knowledge of the back gardens of Grimsby and the decision to wear baseball boots that night.

5 - My first boyfriend was called Sheldon Mills. Sounds like a carpet manufacturer, I know. Or maybe a National Trust property. We lasted six weeks. He was an accountant and I was a Teenage Fag Hag. It wasn't going to work, was it?

6 - Back in 1973, my mother heard a knock on the front door. It was my toddler self wanting to be let in. She believes I had fallen from the upstairs window, bounced merrily on the grass and crawled to the doorstep having recognised home. I don't buy that explanation and think fairies were involved.

7 - I am allergic to sunlight. Too much and my skin blisters. I'm OK with Holy Water though.

8 - I stormed the stage at The Loo of the Year Awards (a British award ceremony that honours the best kept public toilets). The marketing agency I was with needed to make an announcement, and the marketing agency organising the event were being petty and not letting us, probably because we had just won the account from them. It was very Jarvis Cocker, but with a U bend.

9 - I did not read normal English until I was 9 years old. Until then I read a strange phonetic alphabet (known as the Initial Teaching Alphabet) as part of a educational experiment in the 60s and 70s. I'm still angry. This (left) is what English looked like using ITA.

10 - I have slipped on a banana skin.

So there you go. Now, which one is the porky pie?

And who to Honour with the Honest Scrap Award?

Well Jamie snaffled a lot of the ones I would have nominated, and I suspect they might, in doing this meme themselves, have snaffled even more. So this is a list of nominations of Blogs Worth Reading, as well as people I think have some dark secrets stashed away...

A Shove in the Back Honest Scrap Blogger Award goes to:

@ewarthale in his blog

@RedMummy in her blog

@EmoKiddy in his blog

@eyglo in her blog

@maribiscuits in her blog

@kellyfairy in her blog

@koshkanott in her blog

@ltxi_itx in her blog

@nik_kee_dee in her  blog

@SandyCalico in her blog


Oh, and the official rules I'm deviating from are:

a. 'The Honest Scrap Blogger Award' must be shared.
b. The recipient has to tell 10 (true) things about themselves that no one else knows.
3. The recipient has to pass on the award to 10 more bloggers.
d. Those 10 bloggers should link back to the blog that awarded them.

So what was the lie?

Well a big thank you and group hug to everyone for reading and letting me know your guesses at my lie. I must confess I loved all the attention and the fact I had everyone hoodwinked (including my own sister) apart from Kelly-Marie Cheesley (damn her) who worked out that the lie was me falling out of a window as a toddler. I did not, though I did pedal downstairs on my trike at about that age.

If my mum found out I had written such a thing she'd probably push me out a window for implying she was a slattern of a mother.

Wordless Wednesday #3 by @Angpang

When we were Five...

There is lots of beaches at Wales,

They are fun.

There is lots of jellyfish.

It’s very sandy.

There is lots of seaweed.

I run through the waves every time I go.

The waves are giant.

We saw a big crab,

It only had three legs.

I found it.

We made a sand lake.

Mummy made a spiral.

We stuck our feet in some bubbles.

I found a lot of razor shells.

We went in a cave,

It was dark.

A little explanation: I was talking to my 5 year old daughter about poems yesterday. She wanted to write one. I asked her to think of a special day and tell me about it to make the poem. These are the words that came from her mouth. No editing, shuffling or additions by me. The photo shows her on the day she is talking about.

Wordless Wednesday #2 by @Angpang

Wordless Wednesday #1 by @Angpang

Taking inspiration from The Omphaloskepsis blog, here's my first Wordless Wednesday post.

Awful Antique Shops

I see Dead People's Stuff

How do you get your thrills on Halloween? We just take a tour of our local ‘antique shop’. Owned by a house clearance company, it's the end of the road for dead people's stuff, and the sight of all those personal things piled-up high - as if a JCB was involved, not a human hand - is more chilling to me than any horror film.

It's a clever trap. A Victorian building offers a respectable face to the high street with an almost tidy and ordered interior, you browse at ease, but once you step through the door at the back - into the much older buildings that lurk behind -  it begins. No wall is straight. No angle is 90 degrees. No floor is level. Under your feet a crazy patchwork of grimy linoleum, mildew carpet and spongy floor boards fractures your sanity, but you barely notice.

I spotted three church organs like this with the
cliché pull-out stops labelled in gothic writing. Unfortunately, not one of them read "bats"

And then there's the stuff. Pictures so crammed in a box so it’s impossible to look at them. Pianos going slowly insane in the dampness. Suitcases piled-up behind a wooden staircase.

This room had many metal hooks embedded in the ceiling.

When you do pull-free of these spaces and head for daylight, you don't find yourself back in the safety of the high street, oh no. You blink a little and realise you've arrived at the centre of the Antique Shop experience, in a courtyard, also crammed with things, things full or rainwater. Surrounding you are more doorways. And more rooms. Waiting.

The courtyard. Rainwater gathers in Grandma's best china.

The owners have another outlet in town. There things are cherished: dusted, ordered, displayed in cabinets with posh price labels tied on a string. But this stuff failed the test. Poor peoples' stuff; stuff they don't think they can sell.

It’s ghoulish to walk around, I admit. But the stories these things tell.

Photo albums. Boxes labelled 'Mrs Mason's House'. Shell monstrosities bearing the legend A Souvenir from Scarborough.

Then I see things from my Grandparents' houses (not the actual thing but something just like). Then I see something that was brand new when I was a child. The shudders keep on coming.

It's curtains.

I giggle at other people voicing my thoughts:

'Oh my God! There’s another room.'

'I’m going to need a bath after this.'

'Urgh it’s full of rainwater; who would buy…?'

How many Christmas Dinners have these witnessed?

In one room are several dolls houses that have been hand-made, probably because the family could not afford one from a shop. That's what happened in my family, anyway. These seem especially sad.

At this point in our ride, my boyfriend (a photographer) asked if we could leave now, because he was getting the same kind of cough he got when he had to take photographs in that dead man's house. I said to him 'har har, very funny'.

Then he reminded me of the details of the job, and I remembered it did happen.

A few years ago, he had to take some 'before and after' shots for a cleaning company that specialised in clearing houses after people had died. People that had never cleaned or thrown anything away. He recalled the dead rat they found in the living room under a pile of junk, with dead maggots inside. Opposite the comfy chair was a stack of take-away trays to head height.

Time to go indeed. Sleep well.

Colour Coordinated Bookshelves - I did it... I love it!

Bookshelves and Brick Dust

I suppose it started here.  

This was my living room a month ago. See either side of the sooty mouth of Hell? Empty bookshelves. I had taken the books down and tucked them away from the nasty man with the big hammer. And here lies the tale of how I put the books back. But first, a little more about that building work.

The hole became a tunnel to the ‘others side’ (well dining room, actually) so the brick dust had a whole new place to huff and puff into. The tunnel became this...

Ah… lovely straight lines, smooth surfaces and a proper passage that my children ran through a thousand times. But no mopping or painting or putting-back yet for my twitching fingers. Plaster and cement had to dry.

Then there was this, the whole point of the exercise: a double-sided wood burning stove that is designed (because our home is mostly on one level) to provide our heating in winter. Rude gestures at the gas company and a very dainty carbon footprint should be the reward of all the work, and so far the stove has made both rooms supremely cosy. But what about the books?

The books. I may have 500. In my living room: fiction. Upstairs, non-fiction. In my children’s bedrooms, children’s books. In my bedroom, knackered books, the ones the ghosts hover around. A set of Greek mythology my grandfather bound himself back in the 60s. The Warfare of Science with Theology by Andrew Dickson White. The Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa, in the Year 1805 by Mungo Park. A Welsh bible, Y Beibl, that was my great-grandmothers.

But back to the empty shelves in the living room. Having suffered a ball and chain of a cold for the duration of the building work, I found that I couldn't be arsed to put these particular books back. At least, not as they were. I had a new stove, a new dimension in my front parlour. I craved a new look from my books, too.

Then I remembered a blog post by Miss Read on the very subject of how to organise your bookshelves, which I had read and commented on. I went back to the blog, and found myself saying:

"I order my books by look, which can lead to some kind of order, the poetry tends to be small, art books big, Penguin Classics make an orange block over there, and as long as you don’t switch from paperback to hardback by the same author, their stuff tends to go together too…"

“Penguin Classics make an orange block over there”. Hmm, there was a thought that tickled. Maybe I had to take that logic further. Could I put them back just by spine colour? Sod the author, genre, size even. The Dulux paint chart approach to ordering books. 

And that thought was quite a starting pistol. Without pausing for Lemsip, I stopped reading spines and started seeing colours. Aiming for contrast, I stacked greens over purples and reds, and blues over yellows and oranges. Blacks created a solid foundation on the bottom shelves, whites the top. So much easier than working out where you are in the alphabet. So much kinder than forcing books into clichéd genres. Grabbing and slotting by shade felt wonderfully liberating.

Books I had forgotten about took on new significance because of their fabulous spines of indigo, jade or acid lemon. Books I loved were tutted at for not trying hard enough with their faded white.

Patterns emerged. Science fiction dominated the blues, horror the blacks, fantasy the greens, chick-lit the pinks. Like a row of sunbeams, the Penguin classics welcomed Irvine Welsh’s orange and black Trainspotting into their ranks.

I loved the surprises. Alan Moore's From Hell, a new edition of Jane Eyre and Robert Sabuda’s pop-up treatment of Wizard of Oz formed a bohemian gathering in sultry purples and magentas. Titus Groan and Gormenghast parted company with Titus Alone. Clad in black, Dickens and Austen skulked among the thrillers and horrors. India Knight's My Life on a Plate crash landed on Brian W Aldiss’s Helliconia Spring, the planet where seasons last 1000 years. John Wyndham's Seeds of Time, its red spine bleached by sunlight to a delicate pink, embraced an anthology of love poems.

And then there was the whites. Two shelves of them. I left these till last when I was reaching the point of obsession with nuances of shade, so they were sifted further from pristine to yellowed, which indicated the age of the actual edition. A good way to see how long you have owned something.

So that's how it looks (with some editing of the chimney breast for effect). But can I find anything with my new system? Actually I can. When I think of a book I own I can see the spine in my head, clearly, so it works just dandy for me.

My beloved books are back and they look decorative and dramatic. I can’t ask for more. But there is more: I think the books are enjoying themselves too.

Gormley's Field in a Shoe Box

I do love Anthony Gormley's Field for the British Isles.

I think I first spotted it in The Independent when it was unveiled back in 1991, and spent a long time staring at the photographs of it in poor quality newsprint, clear proof I needed to see it for real.

If you don't know it, I suggest you put it into Google Images and have a real good look, but if you're in a hurry here's the jist. It's a sculpture: 35,000 small, unglazed terracotta figures packed tightly together in a huge space. More that you can count, many disappearing out of view, all staring at one point: the small doorway you are standing in. A few – stargazers – stare upwards. It can be set-up in any large room, and has indeed toured the UK and the globe. If you get chance, go and see it.

Field for the British Isles gets you in a lot of ways.

Firstly, biologically, because you cannot help but perceive those lumps with two holes at the top as faces, bodies, heads, eyes and personalities. Spend long enough with them and you'll be picking out the lovers, family groups, gangs, loners and elderly among them.

And what’s more, they’re a huge crowd, which gets you psychologically. It makes your hairs stand on end. Crowds do not gather lightly, there has to be spectacle, protest, exodus, battle. A crowd that big suggests world changing events, or at least an event the world sits down to watch.

But wait: this crowd are all staring at you. Silently. We’ve all been unnerved by a portrait watching us as we walk across the room, and Field multiplies that feeling by 35, 000.

Is this what it feels like to be a monarch, rock star, messiah, dictator? Do you feel scared? Humbled? Are you looking behind you to check for Elvis? Or do you find yourself thinking home at last?

And answer me this: If one of the figures at the front waddles towards you, tugs your sleeve, and ask a question, what is that question?

For me it's: Why did you use so many plastic bags?

Whatever your question is, I'll bet it reveals some inner obsessions.

And aside from the Field's bio-psycho-social mojo, my sister, Louise, was one of the volunteers that set the little figures up when it was displayed at The British Museum a few years ago, so now it’s not a major work of art, it's part of the family.

I finally got to see the Field at Lincoln’s Usher Gallery in 2003. I recall the comments book in which one disgruntled visitor vented: “I have travelled 30 miles to look at the paintings of Peter De Wint only to find I cannot get in to see them because this pile of rubbish is here”.

Now for The Field in a Shoe Box...

So this summer holiday I decided it was time to introduce my kids to the Field through the medium of a shoe box and modelling clay. Here’s what we did.

Total spend £1.98 on two packs of modelling clay (the stuff that does not dry out) and an adult sized shoe box. We got our clay from The Works for 99p, woot!






We cut the clay into tubes about one inch long, each a blank waiting to be moulded into a little figure. My sister told me the terracotta figures were called Gorms, a term we happily adopted for our sculptures. In this raw state we called them Gormless.





Using fingers and thumbs, we squashed the tube into head and shoulders plus a flat bottom, so it would stand up.







We used a cocktail stick to make the eyes. Some were evil slanted eyes, others big round goblin eyes.










Our first Gorms waiting to be put in the shoe box. Note Ruby's alien Gorms with several eyes, and Emelia's super tall ones with Dr Seuss wobbly grins. It does take a while to do all the Gorms, so the more hands you can get involved, the better.






We cut a letterbox style hole in one end of the shoe box. A crucial part of the real Field is you are only allowed to look at the Gorms from one viewpoint. This is ours.






We positioned the Gorms in the box, facing the hole. You have to press them down quite a bit to get them to stick, so all our Gorms ended-up with quite fat bottoms. We decided to mix all the colours together rather than segregate. Dad joined in at this point. Perhaps, like barbecues, Gorm planting is a Dad thing.

We then cut a large window in the shoe box lid to let the light in. You can cut round holes to make spot lights, or a big square hole covered in tracing paper for big, diffused light.



We looked through the hole, and this is what we saw.


And what did the kids think? Well we had a happy hour making the thing and all the whole family got involved, so smug-parent points earned there, I think. They loved the little Gorms like the colourful little munchkins they are, and soon made mummy and daddy Gorms and lots of little kiddie Gorms (which may be hard to see in the picture, but they are there).

They have also showed Field in a Shoe Box to every visitor that has come to the house since, and have told everyone that Aunty Lou Lou made the real one (sorry about that, Anthony).

So, as you can see, it's very easy to do. So have a go. And let me see the photos, too!

What is #worthaF? A #followfriday alternative from @angpang and @gibbzer

This post has moved to my dedicated Twitter Blog.

Click here to read it now

http://angpang-twitter-blog.push.uk.net/2011/05/10/worthaf-quick-guide-followfriday-alternative/

Thank you and big hugs.

Angela.

Are you #WorthaF?

This post has moved to my dedicated Twitter Blog.

Click here to read it now

http://angpang-twitter-blog.push.uk.net/2011/05/09/worthaf-followfriday-alternative/

Thank you and big hugs.

Angela.

British Authors on Twitter... 60 names and counting!

A few weeks ago, US author Carin Berger re-tweeted Mashable's list of the top 100 authors of Twitter. I had read the list already, and enjoyed it, but found it missing a lot of British names I knew were on Twitter because I was following them.

So when Carin also asked ‘but what about the British authors?’ I decided I could at least offer her a list of those I knew. And rather than cram a load of tweets with author userames and chuck them at Carin (causing many authors to think 'is it Follow Friday already?') I thought a list on my blog would be no more effort and a lot more useful. I was wrong about the effort, but hey-ho.

After much cutting and pasting and cursing, it's ready. And, wouldn't you know it, I have a blind spot on spelling 'author'? It keeps coming out 'authour'.

There are Very Important Notes at the end, which should answer some questions you may have, and a few links to other lists of writers on Twitter, including the original Mashable post.

Each name links to that person’s Twitter page. The list is alphabetical (by first name).

So... an incomplete list of British Authors on Twitter


Alain de Botton
writer

Allyson Bird
Horror writer. My collection Bull Running for Girls has been published by Screaming Dreams. Working on a novel called Isis Unbound

Andrea Gillies
Writer. Author of 'Keeper'. Now writing novel.

Andrew Keen
The Anti Christ of Silicon Valley

Belle de Jour
Writer, ne'er-do-well, and inspiration for the TV series Secret Diary of a Call Girl.

Bernadine Kennedy
Novelist (7 books published), Freelance Writer, Traveller and occasional Blogger

Bill Thompson
I'm a hack and pundit

Caroline Smailes
I write novels and I'm trying to live happily ever after.

Charlie Brooker
Miserable writerist

Chris Cleave
I'm a novelist and I write a weekly column for The Guardian

Clare Dudman
British writer with works published by Viking, Sceptre, Serpents Tail, Tor Bantam. Interested in science & history

Clive Barker
Born and Still Living

Daisy Goodwin
Author, poetry anthologist and tv producer. Head Girl at Silver River Productions.

Dave Gorman
Don't drop litter.

Elizabeth Buchan
Best selling author, wife and mother.

Ellie Levenson
Londoner, journalist, lecturer, writer. Author of The Noughtie Girl's Guide to Feminism

Euphrosene Labon
mind body spirit artist author writer cartoonist freelance journalist

Fiona Pitt-Kethley
Author of 21 books.I live with my chessGM husband and son in Spain. My hobbies: snorkelling,minerals,karate,music, cycling, fishing, hill-walks,food,film, cats

Fiona J Mackenzie
Author of The BEAUTY QUEENS and The DARWIN MYSTERIES. Failed saint, successful sinner, descended from a pirate.

Gary William Murning
A writer living in the northeast of England, Gary's first novel, If I Never, is due to be published later this year.

Greg Stekelman
Writer, illustrator, worker bee, idiot

Helen Smith
author - I write novels, children's books, plays, screenplays and poetry

Iain Aitch
Author and journalist, nosey git and Tottenham fan, sometimes funny

Ian Hocking
I'm a novelist and psychologist

Iain Broome
Fiction writer and copywriter for leading UK design company, The Workshop. Blogger-in-chief at Write for Your Life and Websites for writers.

India Knight
Sunday Times columnist, novelist, mammal. This is my personal Twitter.

Jag Bhalla
Sharer of amusing and intriguing expressions from around the world. Author of 'I'm Not Hanging noodles on your Ears'.

Jane Costello
Author of novels including Bridesmaids and The Nearly Weds

Jason Bradbury
TV presenter and author of Dot.Robot

Jill Mansell
Novelist. Hates mustard.

J K Rowling
Children's Author

Jojo Moyes
novelist/author/writer of fiction. mother of three.

Judy Astley
Novelist and supreme timewaster

Katie Fforde
Romantic novelist and bad Flamenco dancer

Kate Harrison
writer & procrastinator

Kerry W. Purcell
Writer on design and photography, father, swimmer, and secret lemonade drinker.

Laura Anderson
Writer of screenplays, novels and stories, reader of words, filmmaker, vegetarian, redhead

Louise Bagshawe
Author/conservative PPC for Corby

M Murray
Ex UK and USA, artful idler, freelance journalist, author, Tuscany holiday houses landlady. Politics, food, gardens, books, animals

Margit Appleton
Author, translator, journalist: Food, fun, France

Marika Cobbold
author, family person, book lover, city dweller, animal lover, ballet fan

Mark Chadbourn
Writer of stuff - novels, TV, comics, movies.

Mark Morris
UK-based writer with 17 novels and dozens of short stories, articles and reviews to his name.

Matt Rudd
Writer/editor at Sunday Times forced by his publishers, Harper, to tweet and twitlit in build-up to 1st novel.

MichaelMarshallSmith
... And Michael Marshall, too.
Author of ONLY FORWARD, THE STRAW MEN, THE INTRUDERS, SPARES, BAD THINGS, THE SERVANTS and other stuff.

Milly Johnson
short romcom novelist and rubbish dieter

Neil Gaiman
will eventually grow up and get a real job. Until then, will keep making things up and writing them down.

Nick Harkaway
Author of The Gone-Away World. General enthusiast.

Oliver Morton NEW
editor and writer concentrating on sci/tech change and its impacts

PD Smith
a writer, reader and photographer. I review for the Guardian, the TLS and others, and am the author of 3 books, most recently Doomsday Men (Penguin).

Sarah Dunant NEW
Novelist, broadcaster, critic. How grand it sounds. How far from the truth. I am however, not complaining. Though I am now older than I ever intended to be.

Stephen Fry
British Actor, Writer, Lord of Dance, Prince of Swimwear & Blogger [though I am pretty sure you have to tick a box to not follow Mr Fry when you start Twitter]

Stevyn Colgan
Writer, Artist, Musician, Squid Hurler, Beer Monkey

Stuart Clark
Science journalist and author. Author of The Sun Kings and the up and coming CosmoThriller, the history of cosmology – fictionalised!

Tania Kindersley
writer, mostly

Terry Pratchett
Books Written Cheap

Tim Atkinson
stay-at-home dad and author of Writing Therapy

Tim Dedopulos
Hi. I'm Tim, and I'm a Brit who writes books. Like sff/horror, oddness, inspiration, INFJ. Always hunting interesting people!

Tim Lebbon
Bald Horror and Fantasy Writer, and lover of fine ales.

...and that's the lot at the moment.

There is also a valuable list of Screenwriters that Tweet on Miss Read’s blog, which you can look at here.

Very Important Notes

The descriptions are not mine, they are taken direct from each author’s Twitter bio.

The list is not my personal recommendations. My recommendation is: read a baker’s dozen of anyone’s tweets before following them. Having said that writers do, in my experience, tweet the best. If you want to see people (to paraphrase Clive James) turn a phrase until it catches the light (in only 140 characters), following writers is a good place to start.

This list is not every British author on Twitter, so it’s open to additions, but because I want the list to be worthwhile (without getting elitist) here's what I am interested in:

1. Published British authors on Twitter.
2. Writing should be a major part of what they do, not a sideline.
3. They should be Tweeting as their author selves.
4. At the moment the bias is to fiction, but I’m not saying no to non-fiction. Maybe there should be two list. Maybe I need a secretary.
   

Let me know who I missed with a comment here, or by contacting me through Twitter (I’m @Angpang). I'll update the list as and when my workload and children let me.

PS - If you want to know more about the Fragonard painting that opens this blog, it's at The National Gallery of Art, Washingto, DC.

Oh, and that Mashable list can be found here.

...in which I humiliate my mother

It’s 1951 and my seven-year-old mother is the new girl in school. She cannot speak the language. She cannot see the black board, because no one’s noticed she’s incredibly short sited. She knows her mother was hit with a cane across the knuckles for speaking Welsh in a Welsh school, so in this English school, she keeps her head down.

A few years later she leaves education at 14 with no qualifications and a tendency to panic near teachers, institutions and forms.

So it’s not until she’s in her sixties that she returns to the schoolroom. And only because her daughter (me) has asked her to and her granddaughter, Ruby, will benefit. She can do remarkable things for other people.

There’s a Family Literacy course at Ruby’s school, offered to all reception children and their families (reception class in England means four-year-olds; children in their first year at school).

Organised by the county council, and free to all, Family Literacy involves three-hour sessions held once a week in the school library. Half the session is just the adults, the other half sees the children and their teacher join in. Most of the time it’s mums who take part; occasionally dads. I think my mum is the first grandparent they’ve had.

The course helps develop adult literacy skills, with an optional exam at the end that’s equivalent to a GCSE (the exam taken by most UK pupils at 16, when compulsory education ends).

It also explains how children are being taught literacy in their school, vital for anyone trying to help at home because if you don’t know this year’s method in this particular school, you’re stuffed.

And as a Family Learner you also spend time in school with the child; the second half of the session. An hour and a half doing something - almost always messy - with an educational angle. Much needed consolation if you feel that four-years-old is a little young to disappear from home and family for six hours a day, five days a week.

The course also involves activities to do at home, and a diary to complete.

So Family Learning rocks. And in case you’re wondering where the maths fits in, there is also a course on numeracy, but not his year.

Having already done Family Literacy with Ruby’s older sister Emelia, I had the fair-minded parent’s dilemma of feeling I must treat them both equally, but not having the time to do it once more.

So I look around for substitutes. My mum comes into focus. She loves her grandchildren, she even likes other people’s children. She’s always lacked confidence with written English, so she’s sure to benefit from the adult learning side of it. And Ruby will love having Nana come to school. So I ask, and she agrees.

At this point I do confess smugness was setting in as I predicted a win-win-win situation. But smugness comes before a slap in the face.

Mum returns from her first session angry and panicking. Fidgeting with unease. She can’t do it. Everyone else can. She has never known what a noun is, and she never will. She feels so humiliated.

Oh bollocks.

I tell her to stop right there, I’ll do it. No problem.

We leave it unresolved. A few days pass. I test the water. Does she want to carry-on?

The Dunkirk spirit emerges. She says a person needs to ‘step outside their comfort zone’ (has she been watching Jeremy Kyle?). She uses the Old Dear Defence: at her age she has nothing to prove, so if she’s rubbish, so what? She’s spending time with Ruby and helping her, that’s what matters.

And she goes, with the ‘don’t give a damn’ attitude that carries you through your teens and dotage.

But she does give a damn about the diary and the homework. An incredibly crafty person, sticking, sewing, painting and stamping is her territory. Filling its pages with amazing diligence and creativity, it’s full of my daughter's handiwork and photos of mum and the girls grinning away with their latest creations.

And comments on how dim she is, and how she’s never going to get it.

Feel I am going backwards as class reminds me how little I know related to grammar…

She also records the little chats she has with Ruby as they do the homework.

Mum: What was the worst thing about today?

Ruby: Going to Tesco’s

Mum: Why?

Ruby: Mummy would not let me have the chocolate hoops for breakfast

And as the pages turn, her comments get a little bit confident.

I may yet crack this (if I could stop panicking)… I am not short of common sense and most of what we talk about is based on this…

No one else on the course bothers with the diary, probably because they’re busy, and have young children: creatures capable of warping time and space so you have none for yourself.

And to be honest, the diary is dull. The same layout each week with the same three prompts: ‘Progress I have made towards my targets’, ‘Achievements this session’, ‘What have I learned?’.

Oh, the temptation to scribble a knob in protest.

Mid-way in the course, the tutor Jayne takes my mum aside and asks her why she’s completed the diary with such dedication. Mum says it’s so Ruby will be able to remember this time more clearly, because you can’t recall very much from when you’re four, and because she, my mother, will not be here forever.

Jayne asks if she can take the diary to show to her manager at the council. It’s passed from office to office with looks of amazement: why is this woman filling in every page with such dedication when almost every other student gives up within a few weeks? They ask her if she will write a little piece for the council newsletter on her experiences. She does this longhand and gets me to type it up ‘to make sure the English is good’.

And having said for so long she won’t bother with the exam, she finds out that it will help the course receive funding if lots of people take it. So she does. And she passes. But having never sat an exam in her life, she says the real victory was walking into the room and sitting down. I agree.

Then Jayne puts her name forward for Learner of the Year, an award organised by the council with nominees from across Lincolnshire and Rutland. When the invitation arrives to the ceremony, she gets the giggles. The whole family decide to go. This is the closest we’ll get to a red carpet.

And so here we are, driving to the award ceremony at The Lawn in Lincoln, formerly the Lincoln Asylum, a posh Georgian building on the hill near the cathedral. Mum, Dad, Jayne and my daughter’s teacher Sarah.

Alas, Ruby’s in bed, she would have loved an occasion that required princess dress and tiara.

We take turns to tease my mum, especially when reception tells us to go to ‘the big room’. The big room in a big place like this turns out to be the central courtyard, only they’ve put a roof on it. 500 seats fill the space.

It’s a heart-warming night. All the nominees are called out for a handshake and certificate. Normal people who’ve worked bloody hard, most overcoming major obstacles, cheered on by teachers and their family.

And then it’s time for the winners in each age group, all introduced by a little speech. The game is to work out if it’s you or yours they’re talking about….

This person left school without any qualifications and returned to learning to support her grandchildren. She has overcome her nerves and lack of confidence to become a very valuable and well respected member of her group, willing to share her experiences and contribute to sessions. Once she realised she could learn she worked hard and studied from books bought for her by her family to improve her skills. Her diary has been completed with dedication and passion and will be a wonderful reminder for her grandchildren in years to come. She has also overcome her phobia of exams to take the literacy National Test recently. Her tutor says she is an inspiration, what every grandparent should be like – she is amazing…

So yes, she had won. £50 and a long walk to the front of the room to whistles from the rowdies at the back. She did go very, very red.

You see I was right to be smug.

@Angpang and The Me, Me Meme

The lovely @clareHR tagged me with a meme on her blog, which gives me the excuse to talk about myself a lot and do another blog entry without coming up with a) an idea or b) a structure. Clare, you’re my hero.

So here it is, a blog that’s about me. At least I’m consulting an expert on the subject.

If you're a blogger and fancy revealing yourself through these 20 questions, consider yourself tagged. At the bottom of this post I've listed all the Bloggers who have embraced the Me Me Meme - scroll down to see...

1. What are your current obsessions?

Well, anyone who has spent 60 seconds in my company will realise I am obsessed with my children (two girls, aged six and four).

In my defence, I am fully aware I have a pair of ‘mummy goggles’ glued in place, unlike the (mostly) new mums who dominate conversations with details of every nappy change when my children’s achievements are far more interesting.

If you’ve not experienced pathological parenthood, I can only say it’s like that crush you had when you were 14.

You think about them all the time, have to know where they are each minute, filter every piece of new information in terms of its impact on to them, feel quietly exhilarated with them near, strangely hollow with them gone, and find your fingers twitching to scratch the ugly, fat face of anyone who does not share your adulation.

You bond with other parents who’ll play the game (I'll talk about mine for 40 seconds, I'll let you talk about yours for 30). Your mother becomes so much more interesting because she wants to talk about them too. You meet someone who has no kids and fumble for something to say to them. It’s addiction.

And it’s a good job you are besotted, because children also annoy the hell out of you.

But I at least know I’m doing it. I really, really do understand my children are not the most fascinating, beautiful, talented and unusual in the world, whilst at the same time knowing they damn well are.

2. What item from your wardrobe do you most wear?

Hats.

There are two Angelas (well at least two, but let’s not go there): Angela Ideal who has perfect hair every day, and Angela Real who lolled in bed that extra ten minutes and has bad, bad hair so she rams a hat on top and hopes it won’t be windy.

For winter there’s my Child Catcher's Hat (named such by my boyfriend) that really does look like the one worn by the scary bloke in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I wore it at the local Christmas Fair along with crimson devore scarf, floor length black coat and ankle boots. I had an honourable mention in the Victorian fancy dress competition I did not realise they were running.

For summer it’s often headbands, which also camouflage the too-big forehead I have.

Pride of place is my Philip Treacy one (pictured). S’very nice. But it really demands full make-up and heels and military-esque coat to carry it off, and Angela Real has just not got her act together yet.

3. Last dream you had?

That was a nightmare, because I foolishly watched The Grudge, a formulaic horror film that I should, with my age and experience, be able to laugh at scornfully (ha ha har) but truth is: I’m easily scared.

When I thought a ‘boo’ moment was upon me I stared at the fireplace (open fire, very calming) so I can’t even say I watched it properly. But the undercurrent of ‘something’s gonna get you’ leaked into my dreams, and then my youngest (who had sneaked alongside me for a cuddle) leaked onto my mattress (too much bedtime milk) so I was evicted to the sofa with a Disney Princess throw that left something exposed no matter how I arranged it.

But that was not the end of it. The kids invaded the living room at 6am so I had to move to the bed of the child that had piddled on me. It's five foot long with a matress as deep as an insole and it started life as a cot, so sleep was a stranger, but it was either that or drift in and out of consciousness to The Chuckle Brothers, which would be more chilling than The Grudge.

4. Last thing you bought?

Hair slides. Sparkly green hoops. A little bit vintage. I tret myself (that’s Grimsby slang, work it out) because I was going to an award ceremony with my mum, who had been nominated as a Lifelong Learner, so I was thinking red carpet, paparazzi… but more of that on another blog.

They are lovely and twinkly. Sadly, I did not wear them, having nothing that shade of green in my wardrobe apart from a sensible, Marks and Spencer V neck which may have said ‘green’ but in no way said ‘sparkly’. Idiot.

5. What are you listening to?

As I write this, the Early Learning Centre’s ‘Any Dream Will Do’ CD. Which includes songs from the shows by OK singers and OK musicians. It’s coming from my eldest’s bedroom.

But this afternoon I listened to an ‘Ange’s Faves’ playlist for the first time in about a year, and remembered how much I love Radiohead, Portishead, Massive Attack, Jeff Buckley, Gorrilaz, Turin Brakes and Aqualung.

6. Fave holiday spots

London. Snowdonia (lived there for four years). Cornwall. Arizona. Italy.
I have not been to Italy yet, but I know I am going to have a wonderful time.

7. What are you reading?

I’m re-reading Angela Carter's short stories Burning your Boats.

I started talking about Ms Carter on Twitter to US writer Debra Snider, and was flooded with Tweets from many others praising Carter’s work. Debra was convinced to give her a try, and I was convinced to read it all again.

8. 4 words to describe you

Cannot be easily summarised.

9. Guilty pleasure

Secret Millionaire. Though the formula is starting to poke through and I don’t cry anymore.

10. If you were god/goddess who would you be?

Love, lust and beauty sound appealing, which would make me Aphrodite.

11. Who/what makes you laugh until you are weak?

Flight of the Conchords.



12. Fave spring thing to do.

Get lost in some woodlands. I find dappled shade magnetic.

Chuck lots of stuff out. I always have a piano and a coffee table too much in my house.

13.When you die what would you like people to say about you at your funeral?

Still sexy at 99.

14. Best thing you ate or drank lately?

That would be my boyfriend’s rhubarb crumble (that ain’t a euphemism) made with rhubarb fresh from mum’s vegetable patch. He thinks I don’t notice him sneaking in some ginger, but I do.

15 When did you last go for night out?

A week ago to a friend’s house for our Art Group, which is six time-poor / cash-poor mums who coulda-shoulda-woulda been good artists but through the well meant advice of parents to ‘get a good job in a bank’ did not turn their talent into a career. Plus me, the crap one.

This evening was heaven. My friend had arranged her unwashed dinner plates as a still life, and supplied us with oil paints (and all the paraphernalia that puts you off buying them) so we could just simply have a go.

I pottered away until midnight attempting to paint a gorgeous antique white jug with the proportions on Monroe and the luminance of a Vermeer. The finished painting is recognisable as a jug, so I feel I’ve leapt the first hurdle on my way to becoming an artist. And my youngest child told me it was wonderful. Perhaps there is such a thing as 'daughter goggles' too.

The smell of the oils and the joy of good company are now permanently linked in my mind.

16. Fave film ever.

I watched Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet several years ago before I was a parent. I have just watched it again as a mother (look, the M word again) and found it amazing in a whole new way. Have loved the play since my GCSEs, when it was the set text.

17. Share some wisdom.

“Wise children always choose a mother who was a shocking flirt in her maiden days, and so had several offers before she accepted their fortunate papa.” J M Barrie, The Little White Bird.

18. Song you can't get out of your head.

Cheesy songs are the ones that stick. I like to plant them in my boyfriend’s head by humming them in his ear in the morning. We Built this City on Rock and Roll. Sorry.

19. Thing you are looking forward to

My children’s hugs. My four year old is exactly the size and weight of a hug.

20. If you could change one detail from your past, what would that be?

That I’d edited more ruthlessly. People can be backpacks or jetpacks, and I put-up with the backpacks a little too long.

Tag you’re it…

Meme Rules: remove one question & replace with one of your own.

UPDATE: The Me Me Meme challenges has been taken up by:

@eyglo in her blog

@koshkanott in her blog

@ltxi_itx in her blog

(go read and enjoy)

I'm sending special obligation rays out to:

@goonergamie blog

@nik_kee_dee blog

@belle_lulu blog

@cakepirate blog

@EmmaJaneR - you can do pictures