Growing watercress

Grow watercress (Nasturtium officinale) in plastic bottles -- placed horizontally, with the top fifth/quarter cut off to form a mini bed.  Maybe no need to make holes as they like to be waterlogged, or small holes for some drainage.  Once they establish themselves, you just keep cutting off the tops to eat. The ones with roots sticking out of the nodes, you can snip off and start new ones.

No escape, no escape (Singapore / New Zealand / Taipei / Beijing)

Two ex-students (one British-born Chinese, now living in Singapore; one Malaysian-born Chinese, now living in New Zealand) discovered recently on FaceBook that they’d both been on my evening class programme, thus sharing the same teacher.  

    This reminds me of two other students back in the 80s and 90s.  

    One was in a park in Taipei, started a conversation with another Westerner, and discovered that they’d both studied under me.  

    Ditto another one in a Beijing park.

    What are the odds of that, I ask you?

(Singapore / New Zealand / Taipei / Beijing, 1980s–2023)

Cleaning mirrors

Someone I met on a course two weekends ago said she and her husband are planning to move out of London at some stage to Wales, to grow things and be self sufficient.  So, I’ve started compiling a list of eco(-logical/-conomical) tips for her.

For cleaning mirrors, a lot of tips out there say water + vinegar, and maybe washing-up liquid plus other things that you have to pay for (soap, rubbing alcohol*). Not to mention the microfibre cloth for wiping the surface.  

If you live in an area where you get free newspaper, use it to clean mirrors.  

Just wet it, and wipe the mirror with it.  All blotches will be lifted, even stubborn stains.  (The news ink soaks up all the grease.). No streaks.

*google says: isopropyl alcohol or an ethanol-based liquid, with isopropyl alcohol products being the most widely available.

Plastic bags (London)

After 18 years at Belfiore Lodge in Highbury, I had to move out.

As I was packing up nearly two decades of accumulated possessions and taking them to the charity shop, one of my evening class students asked me if I needed any plastic bags. 

My answer: “Listen, I’m the Imelda Marcos of plastic bags!”

(London, 2003)

If you wait long enough… (Peru)

To people who say, “Oh, as soon as I threw out that item, it became fashionable,” I’ve often made this observation, “If you wait long enough, fashion will come round, like platform/wedge shoes, mini skirts.”

Talking to the person I was treating yesterday for a herniated disc, I was further reminded of this.  I was telling her about my first hike (of two) along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.  

I’d gone to Peru with my old cycling jeans, so that I wouldn’t look like I had a lot of money (well, a lot more money than the locals).

The air up there, being at 4,000+m, is rarefied, so I was struggling after half an hour of walking up to the first pass with a rucksack of food and cooking utensils for the three nights’ camping.  I was taking more and more time out, sitting down on the boulders by the path.  At first, it was every 20 minutes, then 10, then 2.  Before long, the lower edges of the seat of my jeans had got worn through to form two elongated gaping holes.  I had to tie a shirt around my waist to hide the bare flesh revealed underneath.  

That was in 1986.  The grunge era of the 1990s and 2000s saw distressed jeans coming back into fashion (from the late 80s in the hard rock / heavy metal era, according to google), with some going for 4-figure sums.  

If only I’d kept that pair of jeans from my 1986 Machu Picchu Inca Trail walk…

(Peru, 1986)

Blushing cannot be controlled (Singapore)

There was a girl in my year at secondary school (St. Joseph’s Convent) in the E class who had, for some reason, become the target of one particular teacher’s ire.

Background: During my school days, a class size of 40–44 was normal and did not impact negatively on learning (unlike in the UK where they constantly complain that big classes mean students are not getting the right level of attention, thus resulting in low standards).  We’d have 200 (give or take) students per grade. Class A would do Maths and Science.  Class E would do Domestic Science (cooking and sewing).  

We Class A students often envied them because we only produced nasty smells in our Chemistry lab sessions (hydrogen sulphide, e.g.) and drew cockroaches preserved in formaldehyde for our Biology classes, whilst Class E students’ Domestic Science sessions produced lovely smells of cakes and cookies, and they got to eat them, too, at the end of the class.  

The general thinking at the time was that Class E = not that good academically.  (This is why, at my Pre-U school, the daughter of a prominent figure was put in Science A, which was a Pure Science class, when she was meant for Science E, which was a pre-Med class, thus necessitating a reshuffle of timetables because Science A didn’t do Biology.)

This poor girl at my secondary school was probably at the bottom of even the E class.  She didn’t seem to get anything right, ending up constantly testing the patience of that particular teacher, who had a reputation for being fierce although she was good at teaching (we Class A students loved her English grammar classes).  This sharp-tongued teacher was always shouting at her in front of the whole class, telling her off for doing this or that wrong.  (I myself had tried to resign from the school netball team because I found her acerbic shouting very upsetting.)

One day, this Class E girl decided that she’d had enough of that particular shouting session, and went for a dead faint.  It was most effective, as the teacher immediately stopped shouting.

Two girls were called over to carry her to the First Aid Room, one picking up her shoulders, the other her ankles.  Unfortunately, the one at the ankle end raised the feet too high, so her skirt rode up her legs to reveal her knickers.  

The girl went bright red — while still “unconscious”.  Unfortunately, the teacher had seen it too.  “Put her down!  Get up, get up!  How dare you try to play a trick like that!?”  The poor girl tried to carry on being “unconscious” for another 30 seconds, but had to eventually open her eyes and get up off the floor.  Extra humiliation.  Poor thing.

(Singapore, 1968)

Getting into a tizzy (London)

After having edited a series of eight stories for self-publication, I’ve now been encouraged by the author Furio and his brother Valerio to do the same for my blogs, so I’ve gone for my collection of animal [real] stories as it’s easier than choosing which blogs to publish and how to categorise them.

Valerio is an old friend whom I’ve known since 1978 and has been a great support and help, especially on the technology side since I’m such a tech dinosaur.

Somehow, I managed to muddle through: downloaded the Kindle Create (KC) app (but only after a few attempts); put my stories on KC, editing them there, then saving them into a KC version, and sending the zip version to Valerio.  All of this guided patiently by Valerio throughout the painful process of hit and miss.

Now Valerio wants to aim for Apple Books, and has asked me to put the KC version into Dropbox.  For some reason, I can’t find it after saving it while in KC.  Valerio’s attempts at helpful questions (“Where did you save it to?” / “How did you do it the last time?”) and guidance (“Try looking in …”) have got nowhere: “Don’t know”, “Not there”.

I’d upped the level of difficulty for my student in Wednesday's Mandarin lesson, and she was flapping like a rabbit rushing around looking for a bolthole. That's me now with this KC / Dropbox business…

(London, 2023)