This can't be right, this is for the Radio 4 Book Club

Terry Pratchett had a very devoted following but I was never into the Fantasy genre so had barely even heard his name until about eight years ago.

I was following the Radio 4 book club; one book a month with a radio interview with the author at the end of the month.  I started because I felt I was too unadventurous in my choice of books; I invariably chose something classic like Dickens or Steinbeck, or biographies and autobiographies with a very occasional romance, and I really wanted to read something a bit different.  I bought the books every month from my local Waterstones but when it came to the month we read Mort by Terry Pratchett I couldn't find a copy on the shelves.  I asked the assistant for help and she went off and came back soon after putting on the counter an average-sized paperback and I could see from the picture on the cover that it was fantasy.  "This can't be right," I said, somewhat imperiously, looking down my nose at the book and the assistant, "this is for the Radio 4 book club."  "Well that's Mort by Terry Pratchett," replied the assistant, so I swallowed my pride and paid for the book which I quickly slipped into my bag before anyone else saw what I was buying.

During the 12 months that I followed the book club on Radio 4 I read 11 books, none of which I would have read otherwise.  There was only one book that I gave up on - there are times when you just feel that life's too short.  While all 11 books were an experience that I wouldn't want to have missed I actually only truly enjoyed two; and Mort was one of those.  It was unputdownable, total escapism, and beautifully written.  To this day I've only ever read that one Terry Pratchett book and I loved it. 

RIP Terry Pratchett.

Excuses, Excuses, Nothing but Excuses

Not much seems to have changed since I wrote my last blog.  I'm registered on my chosen course but it's take me until now to get onto the website to download all the course material for my first module and order some of the books which are required reading.  I seem to have forgotten my email password so am having problems communicating with the university and getting access to the journals I need in the library.  In addition I have a new computer - it seemed a good idea since my old one was a small netbook and had become very slow; well, it was four years old.  This will be a benefit but for now I'm held up again because my new computer works with Windows 8.1 and so I have a whole new operating system to get to grips with.

On the plus side I have received my library card and hope to soon have permission to use my local university library, I have also received my NUS Extra card which means I can get discounts in various places - something I knew nothing about for the five years when I was studying before.

For now I have lots of reading to do if I'm going to finish my first assignment by 22 April.

What happened to 2014?

I knew it had been some time since my last post, but October 2013?!

A lot happened in 2014: My youngest son and I both graduated, him with a 2:1 in Politics and Social Policy and me with a 2:2 in Voluntary Sector Studies, my eldest son got married and my middle son became a father.  Once I graduated I spent a lot of time on some long neglected hobbies - sewing and knitting.  I've uploaded some photos below.

So much for 2014, how's that for a quick update?

I spent much of the last weeks of 2014 trying to make up my mind about following up my first degree with a post-grad in Health, Ethics and Society and I finally made my decision last week and signed up.

I foresee my blog from here on largely being about life as a mature distance learner working full-time.

October’s homework assignment involved writing a short piece about time.

I thought we could start with a list of times and what each time means to us and what it's commonly associated with (i.e. 5pm - tea time, but for you it might be time to make a phone call to someone special or time to go shopping).  Then looking at the list, select one that catches your imagination and write up to about 500 words.

I wrote two short pieces for this, which totalled around 500 words and you can see them here.

Writing Group Homework

I have been attending a writing group for four years now and I thought some of my readers might be interested in the writing exercises we do.  This is September’s homework assignment:

Integrate dialogue with some kind of action – give the characters something to do whilst they talk. To get you in the mood, think of café or restaurant scenes, or driving in a car – immediately I think of films and how rarely dialogue exchanges are static – the characters are also eating or getting dressed or watching TV or preparing food , etc, etc.  Make a list of activities a character or characters might be doing as they talk, about 10-12 activities. Pick one and write a dialogue exchange, remembering to integrate your character’s dialogue with the action.

If you’d like to see my own effort you can find it here.

Syria

I've posted about Syria before here, and remembering the wonderful time we had in Damascus, Ugarit and Latakia, the visits to souks, castles and coffee houses and, of course, the wonderful people we met, I wanted to show you just two of the sights from that time in 2005/6.

The pelicans were on the beach at Tartus in northern Syria and we saw the fishermen relaxing in the shade on a small island off the coast of Tartus after we'd enjoyed a short boat ride in the scorching hot sun - we too welcomed the shade offered by the cafe.

 

Tribute to Dad

My last post was prompted by  my  83-year-old Dad being in Intensive Care, unable to speak or swallow. He passed away later that day.  Just a week earlier my brother and I thought we'd witnessed an improvement in his condition, he'd actually spoken a few words.  I'd even sent a 'sentence of news' to radio 4's iPM programme, which was broadcast on Saturday 17 September. This is my sentence of news:  After four days of being without speech due to viral encephalitis my father clearly said, "I want to have ...." How quickly things changed.

As a tribute to my Dad I decided to post this item that I wrote as recent exercise at my writing group:

Biking to Beachy Head

The winding road to Beachy head and the Sussex Downs seemed steeper every day to Roy as he pedalled his bicycle up the long narrow stretch of tarmac.  He'd used this road many hundreds of times in his long life but never had it been as exhausting as it felt now.  he even thought he might have to give up before reaching the top on this occasion.  It was the snigger on the lips of a dog walker, who's dog ran beside the bike yapping at Roy's heels, that made him determined to keep going.

After a long slow grinding ride up to the top, after he'd sat for a while to enjoy his flask of coffee and slice of crushed cake from his saddlebag, Roy got back on his bike for the return ride down the winding road.  The wind rushed through his thinning hair and it filled his cotton shirt which billowed out behind him. Down, down, down he went, past the dog and its owner still trudging upwards, speeding down to the seafront, on to the pier and home almost without pedalling at all.  This was his reward for the hard-going uphill.  

Intensive Care

My father is in hospital at the moment, Intensive Care actually.  He has always been an avid cyclist, right up until he started to get sick about five weeks ago he was cycling up to 20 miles a day – for pleasure!  He is 83 and probably physically fitter than many men and women 40 years younger, at least prior to this current episode.

Dad worked as a baker until he was 50 and then worked in the kitchens of the local hospital until he retired at 65.  Did I say ‘retired’?  A few years later he started working part time at his local Asda, where he had what he often described as ‘the easiest job in the world’; he worked in the instore bakery where he piped the cream into the Victoria sandwich cakes – and he was always very generous with that cream. 

It was while he was working at Asda that he got talking to a colleague about going to France for the day – yes, here he was, at least 70 by then, and several times each summer he would have a day of cycling in France, coming home with fish soup and red wine in his saddlebags.  He admitted it was, "a bit of a struggle" to pedal up the hills when loaded with tins of soup and bottles of wine.  Anyway, his colleague, I’ll call him Simon, who was about 30 years old, clearly thought, ‘If the old man can do it so can I’, and he said he would like to join Dad on his next trip.  So early one morning off they went, 13 miles to the nearest port, 4 hours ferry journey across the channel and cycling all day in France with occasional stops for coffee and sustenance.   They had a great day, well Dad certainly did!

By the time they arrived back at Dad’s house that evening, Simon had all but stopped talking, it was taking all his energy to keep pedalling.  As Dad got off his bike and said, “goodbye, see you tomorrow”, Simon said, “I think I’ll walk the rest of the way home”.  And so Simon walked, on somewhat wobbly legs, the remaining half mile to his own house.  When Dad got to work the next day he learned that Simon had phone in sick.  One up to the old man!

I’m hoping that physical fitness will help him in his recovery now.

No Hiding Place

Apple Charlotte is the dessert of the devil.  Or so I thought when I was growing up.  Layers of apple and breadcrumbs and served with custard.  My sister and I hated it.  Most of mum’s puddings were delicious; sticky toffee pudding, blancmange, angel delight, trifle, jam roly poly and, of course, spotted dog.  But Apple Charlotte we despised.  My parents were of the generation who had lived through the strict rationing of WW2 and as a result we had to eat everything on our plates.  We would pick at it and spread it around the plate trying to make it appear as if we’d eaten more than we had, but it never worked.    No matter how hard we tried there was no disguising the fact that we hadn’t eaten our apple charlotte.

We started to look around for hiding places.  Mum would probably notice if we tried to bury it in the plant pot.  We would be unable to get it out to the garden without being seen and challenged.  We could sneak it up to our bedroom but we’d still have to find a way to get it out of the house.

The solution lay in the table itself.  Made in the 1960’s when everything had to have multiple uses, the drop-leaf dining table had an ironing board underneath that was never used, Mum always used the ironing board that was concealed within the door of one of the kitchen cupboards.  Every time we had the dreaded apple charlotte for pudding Penny and I would pull out the end of the ironing board and put the last teaspoon or so onto the recess intended for the iron and push it back into place.  We were safe, we would never be discovered.  And we never were!

Chocolate!

With Easter just round the corner I thought I'd post another short blog about some of the delights my Dad used to make.  

Dad didn’t just bake he was an expert cake decorator as well and every evening he would be out in the kitchen decorating wedding cakes.  The sweet smell of the Royal Icing filled the kitchen as he modelled two-inch-high swans and created tiers of semi-circular loops to hang around the edge of the cake.  Mixed with the distinctive almond smell of the marzipan that he used to make tiny rose petals as well as the base for the icing, the smell was like heaven and I often crept out into the kitchen on a Sunday evening to watch.  I’d watch until Sing Something Simple came on the radio which would be my cue to leave for something more exciting on the television. 

We loved biscuits in our house and our favourites were chocolate digestives.  Ours were made by Dad who would cover our plain digestives in a thick layer of melted chocolate which he then left to cool and set on greaseproof paper.  I remember picking out the biscuits which had the most drips of chocolate over the edge.  At Easter it was chocolate eggs and Easter Bunnies, or rather Easter Rabbits – there was no baby talk in our house.  One Easter my sister and I had a big Easter Egg each, decorated with delicate, brightly coloured, handmade crystal flowers.  Was I happy?  Well, no actually.  I mean, there weren’t even any chocolate buttons inside.  It was completely hollow; such a disappointment.  What an ungrateful child I was!

Cream Cakes

When I was growing up my best friend was Joy.  Joy’s father, worked for a wholesale butcher and dinner at her house always meant great big portions of meat.  I remember listening to her parents discussing what meat they would need over Christmas; a turkey, a leg of pork and beef brisket.  “Will that do, or should we have some ham as well?” her mum asked.  In my house meat was strictly rationed, we had a turkey at Christmas and that lasted for a week. 

My own Dad was a baker and when I was little he started work very early every morning in the bakery of a local department store, making bread and cakes for the restaurant.  What this meant for us kids was that we invariably had cream cakes for tea; the day’s leftovers.  I was the envy of many of my friends and I often invited Joy home to tea.  Joy loved a cream cake.  I, on the other hand, hated cream.  The sight of thick, white, whipped cream on a lip would quite make me heave.   My favourite was always an iced bun, commonly called a Sticky Willy, but we didn’t do common in my house.  Even Spotted Dick was called Spotted Dog at home.   I first saw the name Spotted Dick on the school canteen menu.  "Is that the same as Spotted Dog?" I asked my friends. 

Coffee Morning

I went out to coffee this morning.  There were six of us and, wanting to try somewhere different, we went to a local pub which is famous for its Christmas decorations.  We arranged to meet at 11am and after waiting out in the rain for 10 minutes for the pub to open the doors we entered a veritable grotto with walls and ceilings literally covered with gold, silver, red and green tinsel and sparkling garlands .......  and the coffee was pretty good too!

There’s something special about morning coffee, I’d much rather go to coffee with friends than go out to dinner; talking and eating is something of a skill that I haven’t quite acquired– I enjoy my food too much to let it go cold while holding a conversation.

Anyway, we were still there an hour later, deep in conversation.  Apart from our group there was one other table occupied by a small party, but that wasn’t good enough apparently.  As the waitress cleared the tables she asked if we would be ordering a meal, and when we said no, she replied that if we weren’t planning to order they would need the table.  We all left, leaving a totally empty pub behind us!  I wonder if they had the lunchtime rush they were obviously expecting?

Arty Breaks writing retreats

When I last wrote in my blog I was about to leave the security of a full-time job and I admit I was feeling more than a little trepidation; how I would pay the bills and what I would do with my time were firmly at the top of those concerns. In fact I never expected to stop working.  I could never understand why people who won the lottery always seemed to leave their job; I thought I would want to continue even in a voluntary capacity.  No-one was more surprised than me when I reached the decision to stop going out to work.

I’ve always really enjoy work, lots of it.  For the last three years, on top of the full-time job, I’ve been engaged in a distance learning degree with the University of Wales, I’m now on the last level of my BA in Voluntary Sector Studies and expect to graduate in June 2014, I’ve also been developing my writing and have had a couple of short fiction items published in print and online. So, you see, I really do like to be busy with lots of ongoing projects. 

It’s been three months now since I left the job and things have moved on; I’m still studying for my degree, I’m still writing – although no new published items to crow about yet.  In addition, I’m now volunteering for half a day each week in my MP’s constituency office, and, and this is what I’ve been leading up to:  I’m setting up my own business!  I’ve got a website and everything!  Good ol’ BT, however, is keeping me waiting until next Monday (26 November) for my phone line, and then I can print my stationery.  What’s the business?  What’s it called? ………

………Arty Breaks writing retreats will run weekend writing breaks in Eastbourne throughout the year and we’re currently taking reservations for January and February 2012.

For more information about Arty Breaks please check out the website, www.artybreaks.co.uk

So much for the question about what I am going to do with my time - sorted!

Bacon sandwiches

My husband and sons follow the Muslim faith and, while they don't follow all the rules strictly, they don’t eat pork.  This means that it’s easier for us all to never have pork in the house and when we eat out although I may eat sausages or bacon or ribs (yummy!) the rest of the family never do.  It’s not just a matter of not having pork or pork products on their plate, no pork must have been cooked with the utensils used to cook their food. 

This issue has caused some funny, some embarrassing and some very awkward moments.  Here are some examples:

Chinese restaurant

Me: “Does this special fried rice have any pork in it?”

Waitress: “No.  Just peas and ham.”

Market stall

Me: “Do these chicken sausages have any pork in them?”

Stallholder: “Only the skins.”

Me: “Pardon?”

Stallholder: “ONLY THE SKINS.”

Beach cafe in Corfu this summer

Me: “We’d like to share a pizza please.   We’d like all the toppings but no ham.”

Waitress: “No ham?”

Me: “That’s right.  Tomato, mushroom, onion, pepper but no ham.”

Waitress: “ok, no ham.”

She returns proudly carrying a large pizza for two to share and my heart sinks as she places it carefully on the table between me and my husband.

Waitress: “No ham.  Bacon!”

He settled for a Greek Salad and I had way more pizza than I really wanted!  

Tomorrow's My Last Day at Work

Tomorrow I'll be leaving my place of work, the place I've worked for the last 14 years, to the day.  I've moved around a lot here, I started when my youngest son was 5 and I was appointed to a new project as a part time admin assistant and over the next 14 years I moved from there to PA to the Chief Executive, Volunteer Manager, back to PA with Operations and HR Manager thrown in - by now I was working full-time (phew!).

Today is the day UK students receive their AS and A Level results and in the office there were very proud parents who's children were either (apparently) indifferent to or disappointed by their results.  'Ultimately,' I said, 'it's only ever the latest thing you do that counts.'  It's true for examination results, GCSEs, NVQs, AS and A Levels, Degrees (Under or Post Grad) but it made me reflect on my own experiences in the workplace too.

By the time I started with this latest company I'd had four full-time jobs; the first two were secretarial - I learned shorthand and typing at college, then I moved to London and got a job with a local authority as, what do you think?  Yes, a secretary.  However this was a promotion - I was secretary to the Assistant Director of Housing and I wouldn't have been appointed to that role if I didn't have the recent experience behind me.   Five years later I grabbed the opportunity to move up - and to the side a little - to become a Rent Arrears Officer.  This was a great job involving meeting people and helping them fight their way through the red tape of the benefits system, giving debt advice, attending court and ultimately (not so good) attending evictions (now that's a blog in itself).

When I moved my family out of London to the south coast to run a hardware shop I was leaving a good, solid career with a local authority and a better salary than I was to see for the next ten years.

After just four years in the shop I moved on again, this time broke, dejected and feeling utterly hopeless and I started to look around for another job; I was an experienced debt counsellor and housing officer, surely the world was my oyster.  It wasn't.

Eventually I found a job as a part time admin assistant.  And this is where my blog started.

It's only ever the last thing you do that counts.  I'd been out of the housing business for four years - my skills and experience were out of date and no longer relevant.  Now I'm leaving my current job and intend to take a break,  try my hand at writing and finish my degree.  However, unless I manage to write a Harry Potter or 50 Shades of Grey blockbuster, I'll be back in the job market at some point, and then will an employer be interested in an unqualified HR or Volunteer Manager with lots of outdated experience?  

And those young people receiving their A and AS level results today - they only have to get them into university, after which it will be their degree that counts and no-one will ever again ask about their A level results.

My Lucky Day

I had a win on the Euromillions recently.  It was the week they promised, “100 UK Millionaires”.  I was quite extravagant, I paid £10 for 5 lines; one for each member of the family.  I’m not a gambler by nature and I rarely even do one line on the lottery but I fancied my chances here; there would be 100 winners after all.

As a child Sunday evenings at my grandparents’ house would often mean a game of cards or a Beatle Drive and the grown-ups thought playing for pennies would make it a bit more interesting.  I didn’t.  Even though the pennies were given to me to play with I didn’t want to lose any of them!  “OK”, said Mum, “we’ll play with matchsticks instead”.  Not me – what let someone take my matchsticks?  No fear! 

Little has changed really.  Perhaps I’m just a bad loser, but I’ve never really understood the ‘fun’ in gambling.  Some say playing the Lottery isn’t really gambling; but what else can it be when you pay money in the hope of winning a large sum and in reality, usually, don’t get anything back?

Anyway, that week when 100 UK Millionaires were created, I had a win.  You’re probably wondering what I did with my winnings.  Well, £2 went on another lottery ticket and the remaining 80p went on a (small) bar of chocolate to celebrate!

How do you know when you've reached middle age?

My children tell me I’m old, but then our children always think we’re old, don’t they?  Mine thought I was old when I was 29!

It was comments from two friends at different times, however, that made me realise I’d crossed the line into middle age.  One came from an actor friend who had been cast in the play, Rebecca, and happened to tell me that they were having problems casting some of the parts.   I joked that I might just try out for one of them.  Now I don’t remember much about Rebecca, but I don’t think there many roles in it.  There’s Rebecca and her husband, of course, the horrid Mrs Danvers and few smaller parts, I think.  Now I don’t know what I expected, I’m sure I didn’t think myself Rebecca (herself) material, but I was somewhat taken aback when my friend suggested I’d make a good Mrs Danvers!  My mouth probably dropped open; I was certainly speechless for a few seconds before coming to my senses and laughing it off.  I can’t help thinking how awful it must be for those beautiful actresses who go from Rebecca to Mrs Danvers in just a few, short, years – no wonder they try to hold back the time with cosmetic surgery; I’m beginning to think about it myself!

The next time was a year or so later.  I was recounting to a young (30 or so) (female) colleague how a friend and I had met an Olympic athlete on the train the night before, describing this drop-dead-gorgeous hunk of a man, with bulging muscles and eyes like pools .... well, you get the picture.  Anyway, she just laughed and said he was probably used to having ‘middle-aged women swooning over him’!  Well, if the Mrs Danvers comment hadn’t quite spelled it out before, this time it hit – yes, I was officially middle aged.   Now where’s my Horlicks?

My First Critic

Throughout my working life, whatever my job, I’ve always written; letters, reports, press releases and magazine articles.  In one of my previous jobs I worked for the same organisation, in different roles, for 14 years. I had the same line manager for 12 of those years and until the last year at every performance appraisal, no matter what comments I received for all other aspects of the appraisal system, I could be confident that I would receive an ‘excellent’ for my writing.  I write.  I always have.  It’s something I’ve always been good at.  I’m never going to write great literature or an academic paper and I’m unlikely ever to be famous, but I can write. 

In actual fact I invariably received an ‘excellent’ in 90% of the comments on my performance appraisals, often with particular commendation for my writing.  Imagine, then, how I felt in that last year when I received an ‘acceptable’ for ‘written work’.  Nothing had changed.  I was still me, I’d been in the same job for four years, I had the same line manager but suddenly, without any warning, I was told that I wasn’t such a good writer after all.  I felt as though someone had whipped the chair away just as I was about to sit down, leaving me to fall, not to the floor, but through the floor into the space below, and the space below that and, perhaps even, the space below that.

Being told by someone I had huge respect for that I couldn’t do something I was so confident about made me doubt everything about myself.  Perhaps there were other things I couldn’t do that I thought I was good at.   I thought I was a good listener, good at helping people work through problems, a good trainer, organizer, co-ordinator.  Perhaps I was only ‘acceptable’ in those skills too?  I was devastated.

Since then I’ve joined a writing group, had some work published, in print and online and I’m preparing to write my first novel. 

Critics - do your worst!

The Real Syria

I spent Easter of 2006 in Syria.  Staying in Damascus with my husband and youngest son we spent the days sightseeing and evenings dining in the most exotic restaurants you can imagine, my favourite was on the top floor of a tall building in the old city with views right over the souk and mosque and where we watched men and women dancing and even watched a display of swordsmanship.  As I watch the news night after night showing the death and destruction in this wonderful place I wonder how long it will be before I can return. 

The following piece is something I wrote a couple of years ago for a writing group exercise – I hope it will give my readers a taste of the real Syria.

The Marketplace

The tea was strong and sweet and as I sipped the delicious nectar from the delicate, decorated glass stikaan the sounds of the souk seemed to retreat into the distance and I relaxed in the shade of the fabric shop in the Old City of Damascus.  The shop was part of an old-style Arab house built around a small courtyard complete with a gentle, bubbling fountain in the centre and that is where I sat to savour my refreshment.  Around me the house itself rose on numerous storeys leaving the courtyard in perpetual shade.

I’d arrived at the shop after a long, hot walk along Straight Street.  This was where St Paul was rescued by Ananais after he was blinded by the light on the road to Damascus and Ananias’ house can still be found within sight of the little shop where I was now relaxing.   The city is steeped in history, ancient history and parts seem unchanged from those times long ago.  The street itself is, indeed, very straight and very long, one mile long, stretching across the whole of the old city and leading from the busy Hamadya souk with its labyrinth of narrow passages all under the cover of a steel roof, complete with its many bullet holes showing evidence of the numerous uprisings against the French during the 1940’s. 

The souk in this part of the city is open to bright daylight and the small shop fronts lead back into darkness in the shelter of the ancient Roman-built colonnaded thoroughfare.  Each tiny shop with its own speciality: soap made from local olives or melons cut into square chunks; perfumes selected and mixed before your eyes; tooth-rotting sweets; delicious cakes; handmade toys, delicately woven fabrics and clothes, leather shoes, socks made from the finest silk; ice cream made as you watch – strawberry, vanilla and pistachio and, of course, the spice shops with sacks of whole and ground spices on display – red paprika, yellow turmeric, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, vanilla - the aromas and colours assail your senses and mingle with the scents from the perfume and soap shops and the fruity tobacco of the hubble bubble pipes being smoked in doorways.   In one particular shop I took the opportunity to look at a selection of exquisite wooden furniture; there was a range of pieces from enormous six-drawer sideboards and tall wardrobes to small hexagonal side tables.  Each piece was covered with intricately carved Mother of Pearl flowers telling the story of the Damascus Rose or geometric, Islamic, patterns.  This is where I found what I wanted to take home with me, a small coffee table decorated with delicate flowers. However, I would be travelling home alone and was concerned about dealing with such an item at the airport, so I left it where I found it, tucked away in a dark corner of the shop.

If you take the time to roam the alleyways of the main souk which has grown around the Umyyad Mosque sooner or later you’ll come upon the tomb of the great Saladin, opponent of Richard the Lion heart during the Crusades.  A constant stream of visitors come to pay their respects at the tomb of this respected leader who’s castles dot the landscape further north on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.  In front of the walls of the old city there is a majestic statue of this same Saladin mounted on a rearing horse and waving his sword as though about to charge into battle.

You can listen to stories of his triumphs and bravery in a certain roadside cafe any evening, it’s worth listening to even if you don’t speak Arabic, the storyteller is so passionate and expressive, his actions so meaningful you can’t fail to come away feeling you’ve witnessed a battle with this great military leader. 

The Umyyad Mosque itself is built on the site of a Roman Temple and a later Christian Church, it is here that the head of John the Baptist is buried, it is also here that our own St George has been sighted – I say Our own St George, but he also has a very important place in Syrian history, although if you ask, as I did, you get the same old story about him saving a maiden from a fire-breathing dragon.  This is the largest mosque in the city and during Ramadan 2,000 people break their fast here each evening at sunset, it is quite a sight to see 2,000 places set for dinner on the polished tiles of the open air courtyard, each place prepared carefully with plate, bread and fruit with the rice and meat being served hot to each person. 

While I waited for my second cup of tea to cool, I took a few moments to explore the fabric shop, which had seemed to beckon to me as I passed earlier in the day.  The main room was filled floor to ceiling with shelves and the shelves were filled with neatly folded fabrics of every colour and combination of colours you could think of.  What I needed was a tablecloth large enough for my dining table at home.  It was new and I was anxious to keep it covered to save damaging the smooth, rich colour of the surface.  However it was very large and all my existing cloths had proved to be just an inch or two too short.  The Syrian proprietor, James (for this was the Christian quarter of the City), showed me numerous cloths and I wanted them all but I came away with a hand embroidered navy blue cotton cloth which would compliment my pure white china, and a multi-coloured thick damask day cloth which reflects the colours of the spice market; rich golds, reds, browns, yellows and greens and even now, 4 years later, every day when I come home from work and see my table with the damask cloth I’m briefly transported to that oasis of calm beside a small fountain in a little shop in Damascus.