alisongardiner1

Yesterday afternoon I learned that major fraud had been practised on my believing mind and that a team of 4000 people had been working to make me see apparitions. Was I upset?  Far from it. The Making of the Harry Potter films experience at the Warner Brothers studios in Watford is brilliant. I was enchanted.

We arrived by car, having been unable to find platform 9 ¾. Ushered through the main doors of Hogwart’s, we wandered open-mouthed down the great hall. Disappointingly, we weren’t allowed a food fight, although on the positive side, we weren’t attacked, fire-balled or burnt down. As a design tip for the average suburban sitting room, you don’t need real floating candles, just cotton wool lumps lit from underneath, floating in a draft. Very effective.

Having kids with us, we skated over the concept that it could be educational. ‘It’s a look behind the scenes. Being told a thumping great secret that only you and six million other people know about. Very special, really.’

 The magic in our minds should have been blown away as we were shown how to make broomsticks fly, people in portraits talk and staircases move randomly. I know how ceiling-free rooms seem to connect to the heavens; but I’m not telling. Think I could even have a pop at training an owl now, if they’d only add in a module on how to catch one. Far from being deeply disappointing, taking away the magic of Harry Potter, the whole thing was a revelation.

Seeing the quiddich brooms with a green screen blew away my embryo acting ambitions; must be a teeny bit tricky to be apparently having a ferocious aerial battle in front of a green screen. Puts Radcliffe, hat and off neatly into the same sentence.

The team left their personal touches on the film. Many of the portraits are of behind-the-scenes people that worked on the film. At the very end of the tour, in Olivander’s shop, each of the wand boxes was named tagged with one of the 4000 people who worked on the films.

The best moment was meeting the elegant, astonishing hippogriff, although I didn’t bow and therefore could have been savaged.

At the end we were left with a sense of what fun it must’ve been to be part of the process. Having nought talent for acting, drawing, music, set design or constructing models, my employment options might have been limited, as they already had an author. I would’ve been relegated to being a gopher or making tea, but it would have been worth it. I’d have got my name on one of the Olivander wand boxes. That would have been magic.

Alison Gardiner 2013

Every September I get the feeling that I really should be getting new shoes. The last time I needed new shoes for school was around the time the last Triceratops was hoping for the monsoon season. However, as soon as I smell of autumn leaves, my mind and heart turn to newly clad feet. I can sometimes live this out vicariously by buying the children new shoes, in the boys’ cases, whether they want them or not.

Built into the XY chromosome configuration is the desire to hang onto footwear when there are cool rips in the fabric and even cooler (yup, freezing) ventilation holes in the soles. With the 15-year-old it’s relatively easy: ‘Tough kid, these are out; shiny new leather in.’ Although he’s taller than me, The Force is still with me. Light sabres at dawn if he objects, which I would win by default as he’s never up that early. ‘Dawn, Mother? Explain this concept to me.’

The 21-year-old presents a greater problem as he gets very attached to his hobo shoes, loving to tramp round in them. Being more practiced at fighting, he makes me feel less like Darth Vader; more like an ewok. He comes up with all sorts of spurious arguments why he should keep them.

‘They’re awesome.’

‘Nope.’

‘Cheaper.’

‘Ask me if I care.’

‘Do you…’

‘No!’

‘If I do something filthy like dirt biking or whitewater rafting, I need shoes beyond shredded, past terminal ruin. You wouldn’t want me to wear those expensive running shoes that you insisted on buying me, would you?’

Sigh…

Foul play, I call it, using logic and finance in the same argument. What was left of the shoes stayed, the proviso being that he had to put them in the washing machine before they walked there themselves, surrendering to their inevitable, fragrance-free future. Queen of the compromise, me.

A term of sorts has just restarted for me as I’ve gone back to Pilates. I seem to have chosen the only exercise in the world that you do barefoot. It’s a Manolo-free zone. Even Nike is not invited, goddess or not. My credit card desires remain unsatisfied, although my pelvic floor is happy.

In bed last night, I couldn’t decide whether to breathe from my chest, rebelliously enjoying my last night of freedom, or from my abdomen as guilty homework for tomorrow. Would ten minutes make up for a summer off? Seemed doubtful but worth a pop. Irresolute, I discovered that doing them alternately is tricky on the diaphragm and requires more concentration than I can muster at 11pm.

 The closest I can therefore get to the Septembery feeling is to paint my toenails with a new colour, hoping the other girls in the class will be dead envious. No, it doesn’t sound likely to me either. Somehow shopping for a new small bottle of enamel won’t quite cut it as a walk past the latest high heels to the small inexpensive things counter. So I’ve decided to embrace my ewok status and grow the hair on my toes, dying or plaiting it according to my mood. Currently Septembery.

Alison Gardiner 2013

I am of a Labrador build, not the whippetesque shape of yesteryear. But now, by force of circumstance, I’m on the Spaniel Regime.

My brother-in-law’s dog has come to us for two weeks R&R. Bailey has thus become my four-legged furry personal trainer, walking me about nine miles daily, zigzagging across pavements, scuttling around bushes and wandering three times round trees. We sprint down the pavement to the park, as even a spaniel with a gut like Bailey’s cannot empty it in full flight. I’ve knock 5 second off my personal best already.

As a personal trainer, Bailey has great advantages. He’s a lot cheaper than the human variety, more friendly and is always available when I need a spot of exercise. On the flip side, with a two-legged PT you don’t have to pick up his poo in plastic bags. Bailey’s gut is perhaps not his most appealing feature, particularly its flatus evacuation feature. This does have advantages, pushing down my calorie intake as I’m unable to stomach lunch with him in the room.  There is a good business opportunity to breed dogs that don’t have a gut, just osmose their food, through their paws perhaps, or spray-on protein.

I’m now aware where all the pre-peed on lampposts are, best piles of leaves, bits of dead squirrel and doggy-do bins are. Yet about of the details of Bailey himself, I am sorely lacking. A delightful lady pulled up in her Mini yesterday and said that he was a lovely spaniel. I felt knowledgeable enough to be able to answer in the affirmative. However, when she asked what kind of spaniel he was, I floundered. I confabulated that he was a cross between a King Quexalt and a Golden Gutbinder, aware that by the time she googled it, I would be long gone.

On arrival, Bailey tried to eat our cat, the chaotic charging around feline-defending adding a sustained burst of max heart rate; good for my exercise program. The solution must be to feed Bailey so much of his rabbit pellet disgusting chunks that he couldn’t fit a cat in.

On the first night Bailey declined to go to bed, lying on his back, legs in the air. I rolled him over to standing, at which point his legs sagged and he became completely boneless. I staggered to the kitchen clutching a wriggling spaniel, back complaining, Bailey happy as a …well, puppy, really.

Bailey on the whole is terrific; happy, friendly, but as I pull out the dustpan and brush again I find myself swearing that the bulk of the dog is fine, but I really must train his tail.

Alison Gardiner

I’ve just been to see a literary agent in London for a one-to-one session to review my manuscript, The Serpent of Eridor.

Putting myself forward for this felt like stepping up to put my head in a lion’s mouth.

‘Yes please, I’d love to. What a lovely, sleek beast this is. And such a particularly large one…’

On the bright side, as cranium approached pharynx, feline rotting meat breath might knock you unconscious before you got savaged. This left me hoping for an agent with halitosis.

Arriving spectacularly early in London, I headed to the British Museum, which is the most superb building, stuffed with wonderful artefacts. Feeling that only an hour here would hardly graze the surface, I graciously admitted defeat and repaired to the cafe for a sustaining brownie. Diet 652 whistled straight past my left ear without so much as a sigh.

The appointment was at Bloomsbury’s, a stunning old house overlooking a leafy square in central London. Bloomsbury’s spacious reception is lined with books from floor to ceiling, possibly related to Bloomsbury being a publisher. Presumably if they imported giraffes, the room would have been filled with tall ungulates peering out over the square, munching on cornices or having the neck to nuzzle the receptionist’s hair. The delivery boy who arrived to drop a book parcel would instead have been arriving with a bale of hay and a box of Ungul-eat: Gives your giraffe clear shining eyes and  a sleek, healthy coat. Seven out of eight giraffes prefer Ungul-eat.

I waited with some trepidation for Lucy Luck, my appointed lion, who turned out to be more of a pussycat; relaxed, friendly, non-halitotic and a complete delight. Our meeting room was in the old servants’ quarters, at the top of the house, where they kindly offered us tea. Take one adrenaline rush from getting there, add in three flights of steep stairs and a cup of caffeine. By the time we started talking my cardiovascular system was in overdrive, speech at the speed of machine-gun fire.

My first question: can I write? probably sounded like cniwrt. Her reply was very sweet and encouraging. She said that one of my particular strengths was dialogue. I now have to resist the temptation to write my next book entirely in dialogue; the zero-description challenge.

I had thought that agents were a bit like guillotines but rather less polite. Lucy was chatty, helpful, with a genuine interest in my work (or was acting superbly) and made many extraordinarily useful suggestions for my current book, as well as broad brush strokes which will help with future writing. Lucy clearly had looked at my 7000 words in considerable detail beforehand, making many notes on the margins; sensible ones, when I might have expected uh? OMG or delete, delete, delete.

Satisfied, I left, resolved to plunge into an MS re-work, à la Lucy, also feeling that it would be lovely to work in this environment. With these stairs I’d soon have one of the best cardiovascular systems and tightest set of buttock muscles in London.

Alison Gardiner 2013

My eldest daughter has decided to study Medicine. Not in itself perhaps remarkable, other than that she already has degree in English, of which I’m very proud.

Having an English degree is an ideal start for Medicine, adding to her skill set in treating many conditions, for example, depression. ‘You’re feeling fed up? Let me recite you a little Wordsworth. I wandered lonely as a cloud….’ ‘You’re uncertain about your sexuality? Despite being a man, you find yourself dressing as a woman? Shakespeare knew a lot about this. I refer you to Midsummer Night’s Dream in particular. Oh, sorry, you mean you’re a woman and want to dress like a man; in that case, Twelfth Night is for you.’

In terms of giving advice on lifestyle changes it could be no end useful. Those who need more exercise would be sent to walk to the library twice a day. Those needing more relaxation would be packed off to read Byron; those bored, in need of excitement, Dracula; those with incipient schizophrenia, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Whoever needed better upper body strength would be prescribed bicep repetitions clutching the Oxford English Dictionary; poor deportment would get fixed by walking with a copy of Miss Read on the head; while those who also had a delicate scalp prone to sunburn, could wear their copy opened and face down. Dieters would   be encouraged to eat ancient copies of distasteful books; a delicious high-fibre, low-calorie snack while ridding the planet of a nuisance.

She has spent three years studying how words are put together, prefixes, suffixes and bits in the middle-ixes. Medicine is exactly the same system: tacking the where; gast: stomach; ped: foot; derm: skin etc on to the what is it? itis: inflammation; -ectomy: removal of; -ology: the study of; -oscopy: to look inside. Hence gastritis, Dermatology. A textbook of Medical terminology should really be called Where’s What?

Some terms don’t quite work like that, in that Haemophilia does not mean love of blood, otherwise Dracula would be a haemophiliac. Neither does hysterectomy mean removal of the hysterical bit.

 This naming system means that you can make your own up, for example dentitis: inflammation of the teeth, pedoscopy to look inside the foot. With this talent at her fingertips she’d be able to invent some brilliant diagnoses.

‘Mr X has ended up in this unfit state by eating too much of a certain type of food. What do you feels the problem is?’

 ‘Doughnutophilia exacerbated by Exercisephobia.’

‘Completely brilliant. I hereby hand you a first-class honours degree in medicine. Also, we need your help in modernising Medical language.’

‘Sure. We’ll start with Derm@itis, 4skin, pl8lets and 50 Shades of Grey’s Anatomy.’

I have no doubt about her abilities. We have here a future Chocolatologist. The only thing that worries me is the pain of the Cashfromparentsectomy.

Alison Gardiner

alisongardiner1

Currently I am on holiday in France, deeply phased by finding a frog in our pool. That wasn’t a derogatory poke at our French neighbours. Had it been, even now the family might be making statements to the gendarmes as to exactly where we were on the night of the 27th and did we have alibis? As the only statements my daughters will make on holiday are of the fashion variety and the boys are monosylabs, this might have proved tricky.

The pool pump hadn’t been working properly, so the water had turned a deepish shade of frog-green, cloudy enough that we couldn’t see our feet, easily concealing a largish amphibian (about fore-foot size, but not four foot, except as my son described him as the one that got away) in the murky depths of the deep end.

My youngest son found it by the simple expedient of picking it up when foraging for something else. He returned to the surface a pale shade of frog. The eldest swam down to look and, relying on his A-level Biology, worked out that as it was lying on its back, legs outstretched, not moving, it was either a fabulous actor or dead.

As it was a French frog we named it Gerry the ex-Grenouille. Gerry had settled back to the depths, our swimming currents swishing him to a place unknown, and so the Great Amphibian Hunt began.

We tried using two frogscopes, plastic jugs shoved into the water, but the murk was too murky. Swimming along the bottom in goggles was equally unproductive, in my case because I was terrified I’d actually find him. Our combined efforts as frogmen (grenouille-hommes) were frankly useless. Even the pool net, normally so efficient at clearing insects, leaves and stray children, proved an inefficient frog-scoop. I should have been revolted, declining vociferously to get in the pool, but frankly it’s too hot to be terrified out of cool water. Maybe I’d feel different at an Oktober frogfest.

Eventually finding it, we swiftly counted its legs to check that it hadn’t been someone’s lunch leftovers. Deciding that an aquatic burial was not appropriate, we went for a burial-at-field, discovering that the pool scoop worked as a very effective onager as we consigned Gerry to the field next door. The last we saw of him was flying through the afternoon sun, four legs outstretched in a glorious arc.

Not certain that the pool is a frog-free zone, I’ve taken to not putting my feet down unless I can see the bottom, to be sure it’s devoid of squishiness.

The pool is clearing, so I am beginning to wonder if we will find all manner of debris such as rusty bicycles, Coke cans or even a dead sun lounger lying on its back, legs in the air. Perhaps even Le Loch Ness monster; presumably he goes somewhere on holiday.

We’ve been listening to Agatha Christie CDs in the car, so the amateur detective in me began to enquire into the unexplained death of the frog. Can’t have been dead long, there being no sign of rigor mortis, being found squishy. Not a mark on the body, so perhaps suicide; by jumping in and holding his breath, perhaps. But why? Maybe to enjoy the power to have us swimming around, revolted and terrified, yet compelled by a strange fascination to try and find his remains? In that case I’m no longer the master detective, I’ve been made into an amphibian’s plaything; frog’s pawn.

I liked the idea from a quote from Dustin Hoffman about living your life to the full. It said that when you die, on your tombstone is written the date of your birth, a dash, and then the date of your death. Essentially, you have to live the dash, although this might lead to all sorts of connotations for relatively normal expressions. ‘Just dashing off’ might mean ‘I’m going to tackle Kilimanjaro’.

How you live the dash is a matter for thought. It’s been said that you should do something scary every day. Such a high frequency might be quite difficult to maintain so I wonder if every week would do, perhaps every Thursday. If you did something frightening on a different day of the week, it might count as being twice as scary because it was out of your routine.

Mid-week terror might be difficult to achieve if you had to pop out at lunch to abseil down the office building before returning for a business office meeting wide-eyed, breathless, hair on end, facing deep suspicion about what you might have been up to. Although facing some conference rooms might be scary enough to count for the next Thursday as well. Can you bank scary? Projecting ahead? Should there be rules, or does that make it less frightening?

I feel it could be scary to do something like sail the Atlantic, but on the other hand I’d find it pretty frightening just sailing out of Poole Harbour on a blustery day. Subjective whooohness. So would it count if you did only did part of something frightening? How about beginner’s lion taming? Or ambulance driving, part one? Speaking to the mother-in-law episode 432? Or finding out that she’d read this. Now that would be pretty scary; if she does, I’ll be terror sorted til Christmas.
Alison Gardiner

On Saturday I attended a James Bond ball. This theme offered the advantage that if you forgot somebody’s name during the evening, you could call them James or Moneypenny and get away with it, unless it happened to be my husband I’d mentally misplaced. Ian Fleming deliberately chose a dull name for his hero, but perhaps he could have brightened it up by calling him something as ridiculous as some of the women, such as Pussy Galore.

‘The name’s Abundance, Willie Abundance.’

Turning up as a Bond girl is fine; choosing a name was a nightmare. Peaceful Fountains of Desire (yes, she really is a Bond girl) or Plenty O’Toole seemed a bit fanciful. Channelling characters like Solitaire and Domino, I was tempted to call myself Cluedo or Monopoly. Choosing Poker might have got me back to Pussy Galore territory. Deciding on something politer, I went as Dr No, thank you.

Attempting to find an outfit, I discovered how difficult it is to find an evening dress with matching holster. High heels are uncomfortable, but are nothing compared to having a gun slung halfway down your thigh or a cold knife strapped to your person, even if it is a dinner knife. A hand grenade shoved down the cleavage would have been gratingly worse but luckily there was no point, as my prop would have vanished without so much as a wrinkle in my décolletage. Presumably real spies either have Kevlar skin, or use Vasoline to avoid getting weapon grazes. Going to the toilet neatly with a gun in a thigh holster is a subject best left without further consideration.

The room had been into the Bond theme by the clever expedient of putting up a poster saying 007. Presumably adding more atmosphere by littering the floor with the dead spies, blasting smoking holes in the wall and leaving smashed cars or motor boats by the entrance would have been difficult to arrange, even if we’d had the calibre (0.45 Colt, presumably) of Pippa Middleton as our party planner.

We were greeted the choice of Pimms or Martini. Feeling I should be entering into the spirit of the thing, I chose Martini and immediately discovered why I last drank one about 20 years ago; the facial expression sucking a lemon is so passé.

The men all looked fabulous in their dinner jackets, the question remaining unanswered however of why James Bond, who is such a flamboyant extraordinary character, chooses to dress like a clone of every other man. Presumably if Ian Fleming had been writing today, he would have chosen to dress Bond into jeans and a hoody, although designer both.

Was James always 007 I wondered, or did he work up from being a junior at 00123526? What gadgets did Bond have when he was earning his licence to kill, but wasn’t quite fully qualified? Maybe with only a licence to thump people lightly. An Aston Martin with L plates? A tiny aquatic vehicle that wasn’t so much submarine as subpool? A Walther PPK water gun, perhaps?

Bond seems to like his women practically cloned. If one had been there on Saturday night, he would have demanded that on the dance floor she was physically energetic but emotionally blunted.

‘Did you enjoy that jive, my gun-toting stunner?’

‘Yes, I was shaken but not stirred.’

Altogether a fabulous evening, including walking home very late with Thunderballs.

Recently I went to the Harold Pinter Theatre in London to see Merrily We Roll Along, which turned out to be more of a prediction than a title. The word Merrily was very aptly chosen, although presumably if they’d written it about churches they’d have used Verily or about vampires, Scarily.

It was totally brilliant. An enormous amount of energy radiated from the stage, each actor a tiny volcano of activity. These superbly talented tiny Vesuvii delivered perfectly timed, pithy dialogue awash with wit, sang brilliantly and danced with brio. Our national obesity problem would melt if everyone was required to perform Merrily once a night. The nation would be healthier whilst smelling of 70’s perfume and tap-shoe leather.

Sondheim music is a little like riding a bucking bronco, taking enormous leaps, sudden turns, lateral leaps, shaking brains out of apathy, keeping one gaspingly alert at all times. In many musicals, songs occur at the oddest places. Disaster; he’s died, tralalalala. Oh, I love you so much, doo-wapadooda-doo-wapwap. In Merrily, bursting into song blended in totally naturally, punctuating the story beautifully, creating enormous fun and energy, melding superbly into the plot.

The story tracks three friends’ journey backwards in time from when they’ve ended up living unhappily ever after. Living life backwards means untangling problems, re-creating hope as wrinkles and life baggage evaporate. In my case this would also mean losing the cat, four children and finally becoming unmarried. Thinking about it, there are definite advantages to this system, although I’d be sorry to lose my wrinkles as I’ve laughed a great deal to earn them. One look at my face is living proof that there is not a portrait of me somewhere ageing rapidly.

It felt fun, if a little unusual, to be watching a play to see if it ultimately had a happy beginning. As the story reversed through life, some of the clothes from 1970s looked embarrassingly familiar. Through rose coloured nostalgia, even flares and waistcoats seemed attractive, totally groovy really, although perhaps this was a product of a musical happy-high.

Grab a night out, go and see it, hum along, laugh, empathise, enjoy; sit back and roll along, merrily.

Alison Gardiner 2013