Anne's Blog

Any girl who's reached the age  Of seventeen or thereabouts Has but one desire in view She knows she has reached the stage Of needing one to care about Nothing else will really do We've got to have, We plot to have, For it's a dreary not to have That certain thing called The Boy Friend. - Sandy Wilson, The Boy Friend musical 💞   S eventeen? I was still in love with Ricky Nelson at seventeen! No, the boyfriend thing didn’t happen for me until I was twenty-one, and even then it was a long-distance romance with a lovely Spaniard from Seville named Juan-Bosco Fernandez Vial (my mum called him Bosco the Biscuit).     I met him in 1965 on the island of Menorca, and for 10 glorious days we danced in the moonlight, kissed on the beach, held hands walking the cobbled streets, and I sobbed all the way home on the plane. I hasten to add, though, there was no hanky-panky. No siree, none at all. I was still a virgin and somewhat teased for it by my far more adventurous London fl...

  I t has always struck me as odd why, in general, human beings are either dog people or cat people. Is there a correlation to someone's character, or does it happen because someone grew up with one or the other? Not the stuff of grand philosophizing, and so I will stop there and admit that I am a dog person.  I have enjoyed being around some cats, but I would never choose to own one. I appreciate the unconditional love dogs give one no matter what one throws at them; I think it is beneath a cat to show anything like devotion--unless the food dish is being filled. I have heard some cats definitely let an owner know when they are displeased, including, when leaving them behind with a cat sitter for a few days, by throwing up in unlikely places as punishment upon the owner's return. A dog instantly forgives an absence and bounds about in ecstatic joy--even after a period of an hour.  What triggered this quirky topic today was this Gary Larson cartoon, reminding me of my own...

  How does the song go: A life on the ocean wave… How I longed to have that life when I was a teenager looking for a career after high school. Assistant purser was what I had in mind, and most of my friends had no idea what that was or why on earth I was determined to be one. (Before I go any further, let’s have full disclosure: I never attained my dream due to discovering the most important skill needed to be an assistant purser was a high level of math. Talk about a downer for this dummy, who didn’t even pass her Maths O Level!) What I would have been good at was Social Director, but it wasn’t a thing back then. What, you may wonder, attracted me to a life aboard an ocean liner? From the first voyage I made with my parents when I was nearly three and we were on our way to Hamburg overnight from Harwich just after WWII so my father’s Army posting as Port Commandant could begin, I was hooked. There was something about falling asleep to the gentle hum of the ship’s engines, the fun ...

  I learned to drive in 1965 on my father’s 1952 pristine Bentley along the winding, one-and-a-half-wide lanes in the Surrey hills. As if the size of the car and the lack of rack-and-pinion steering wasn’t hard enough to handle, the ankle-high gear shift tucked between the front seats was often the stick that broke the camel’s back for me.  Invisible gear shift between seats My father, an erstwhile British army colonel, was not the most patient of teachers, and I was glad of his additional gift of six driving lessons at the local school, with a mild-mannered, retired schoolteacher in Leatherhead. Amazingly, I passed the test on my first try, much to my siblings’ amazement, who were convinced that at 21 I was not much use at anything except a good cry. (A slight exaggeration, but you get the picture of a slightly overwhelmed middle child.) It was not the norm in England in the 1960s for every member of a household to own a car. So, I had to beg my mother to loan me her much mor...