The Larks, Still Bravely Singing, Fly

Our bikes – big sturdy 21-speed touring machines complete with carry tray and bungee on the back, lights, and padlocks -- cost 10 Euros each per day and we arranged to have them until 7 p.m the next day. We wobbled off (I hadn’t been on a bike for25 years and the others, although more familiar with two-wheeled transport, were unused to riding in traffic on the wrong side of the road) following the route marked on our maps and signposted by red hexagons every couple of hundred metres.

We did the southern part of the route that first afternoon, the hexagons leading us past several cemeteries and the memorial at Hill 60 to the main road between Menin and Ypres (I’m using the old spellings here – since this area of Belgium is Flemish speaking, the French names have been replaced, but as we were here on a battlefields’ tour, I will use the more familiar spelling from days gone by). We stopped and wandered among the graves, reading the names and the ages, feeling the deep peace that settles on such places, enjoying the flowers.

Padlocking our bikes we wandered among the shell holes that still pit Hill 60, tripping over iron embedded in the earth and skirting the brambles that climb over a collapsed dug out before reaching a main road that led back to Ypres. Realising that we had missed the museum and trench systems of Hill 62, we decided to cut the day short and go back to Ypres for a meal and a rest, catch the train back to Poperinge, then make an early start the following day and ride the rest of the route.

Arriving at the station, we found the train delayed by more than half an hour.

‘You can leave your bikes in the lock up over night or take them for 5 Euros each,’ the station master told us. ‘But why not just ride back? It’s only 12 kilometres and you’ll probably beat the train.’

We did that, but unlike all the other roads we had been on, the Route Nacional to Poperinge was not bike friendly. Halfway there we passed a sign saying that bikes were not permitted on the hard shoulder, and twenty-ton international lorries hurtled beside us. I cycled behind Alex and Sophia wondering what I would tell their father if I lost them to traffic. As we pulled in to Talbot House, Sophia turned to me: ‘Just so you know,’ she said. ‘I’m not riding into Ypres tomorrow morning!’

The next day we were all feeling tender. Muscles long unused protested, seat bones felt bruised. We took the train back to Ypres and set out for Hill 62.

On the way, Sophia decided to get to know the cows. ‘We don’t have cows in Cyprus,’ she said, dismounting her bike and approaching a small herd, camera in hand. We do, of course, but not cows like these. Cyprus cows are kept inside, and rarely seen. They’re smaller than the great Friesians and Charolais who approach eagerly, lowing and licking their noses with great rasping tongues. Sophia was entranced, but I could not let her linger. We had miles to go and had to have the bikes back by seven.

Hill 62 has a partially restored trench system and a chaotic museum, but was well worth visiting. I wish that we had brought torches, and were wearing sturdier shoes as many of the dug-outs are still standing and safe to enter, although dark and muddy. From there we cycled back to the main road, up to the memorial at Polygon Wood and into the village of Zonnebeke.

…Where we got lost. Somehow, either the map was wrong or we took a wrong turn, but we ended up many kilometres out of our way, hot, hungry, and out of sorts. No restaurants. No pubs, even to get a sandwich. I beckoned to the only person on the street to ask directions, and as he swayed blearily toward us, Alex muttered sotto voce ‘You had to find the village drunk, didn’t you mum?’ Well the village drunk couldn’t speak much English, but he waved over a passing ambulance whose smiling driver put us right and about half an hour later we arrived at the Commonwealth War Graves cemetery at Tyne Cot, just outside Passchendaele village.

Tyne Cot is the biggest Commonwealth cemetery in the world. It includes 11,954 burials, of which 8,367 are unnamed and its Memorial to the Missing is an continuation of the lists on the Menin Gate and contains the names of 33,783 soldiers of the UK forces, plus a further 1,176 New Zealanders. Our visit coincided with those of several coach loads of British school children who passed among the rows of headstones taking notes, making rubbings, and occasionally calling to each other.

‘I cannot believe,’ said Sophia, looking around. ‘That so many men died over such a short space of time, for that tiny rise of ground. What did it mean? What does it ever mean? Did they think it was worth it?’

We spent about an hour there, resting in the shade by the New Zealand panels naming Missing, and discussing some of the themes that had occurred. ‘Do these memorials create a cult of heroism and glorify war?’ I asked the kids, playing Devil's Advocate to make them consider the possibility. And ‘What about the men who refused to go? Who endured prison, or were killed because they refused to go to a war in which they didn’t believe?’

‘We never talked about Conscientious Objectors in class,’ they said. ‘Dissent was not a topic. Who decides the curriculum anyway?’ That question led to the notion of a standardised curriculum, and the pitfalls that teachers encounter when they are forced to tailor class discussions to the passing of standardised exams. ‘But these things are important!’ They agreed. ‘Does somebody not want us to know that dissent happened? That people were punished, ostracised, imprisoned, shot – for following their beliefs? That going along with the crowd is not necessary?’ For me, these conversations were fascinating. I couldn’t provide many answers, but I was glad that the questions were being asked.

To Be Continued

The Poppies Grow

So. Those days in Flanders. The clichés don’t cover them. There is no trumped up heroism there, just sadness for the waste of ‘so many young men’.

The shattered trees, churned ground, and broken bodies of yesteryear exist only in photographs today: the earth holds its memories in the soft-now contours of shell holes, in extant trench lines, and, of course, in the cemeteries – the cemeteries that are such quiet contrast to the hell that created them. Tall trees have grown over the battlegrounds, farmers have ploughed their fields, and fat cattle (huge cattle, those Belgian beasts!) graze around broken emplacements. The towns have been rebuilt, museums created, and the Tourist Information office in Ypres has a range of suggestions for anyone visiting the
sites of the Salient.



But what lies below the surface – literally just below, when (as at the Yorkshire Trench, which we didn’t visit because I didn’t find out that it was there until too late) an excavator strips the thin layer of topsoil? The variegated colours of a filled-in trench, the bones of former enemies entwined, scattered equipment, and a mass of unexploded ordnance show up regularly – if not every day then at least every month.



We arrived at Talbot House late, our journey broken in Lille when my Nikon SLR fell out of my knapsack and we had to find a shop to replace the lens. We caught the local train to Cortrijk, waited through a delay, and changed at last for the branch line for Poperinge. John Reed and his wife Jackie, the hostel wardens, welcomed us with tea and showed us our rooms (small but comfortable) the bathrooms (clean, modern, and with great showers) and the shared kitchen. We looked over the house – climbing the treacherous stairs to the attic chapel, and tinkling the notes on the original piano. ‘This house has always been a hostel,’ John explained. ‘But when the Germans came in the Second World War and requisitioned it for their officers, the local people came just before the Germans moved in and took every stick of furniture. Someone hid the piano in their basement, someone else took all the fittings from the chapel. When the Jerries were on the run at the end of the war, all the kit reappeared, practically overnight.’

We slept fitfully that night. The funfair was in town, and although, thankfully, we could not hear the amusements, we were treated to a long and spectacular firework display (‘Welcome,’ I said to my children. ‘To the Ypres Salient!’), and then to drunk and boisterous Belgians returning home in the small hours.

After breakfast we took the train into Ypres to see how to best use the next two and a half days. It was eleven when we arrived, and we went straight to the Cloth Hall, the massive landmark in the centre of the town that was reduced to nothing but half of its shattered belfry by German artillery at the end of 1914. It now houses the Tourist Information Office and the comprehensive Flanders Fields Museum.


Both Alex and Sophia roundly rejected my suggestion that we take a mini-bus guided tour and voted unanimously to hire bikes and follow the 45 kilometre ‘Peace Route’ that takes in the Salient’s major landmarks, so after more than an hour in the Museum, and a quick lunch at a café, we walked via the Menin Gate to the campgrounds and hired three bicycles for the next two days.

I had seen pictures of the Menin Gate, but they had not prepared me for the reality of the 54,896 names of Commonwealth soldiers killed before August 15, 1917 but ‘to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death’. The names went on, and on, and on. On both sides of the road, arching high overhead, up the stairs and on additional panels around the corner. Time was ticking, and I knew that we would return for the Last Post ceremony either that evening or the next, so consulting our map to find the campsite, we left and walked along the river.














To Be Continued.

Heat Wave

For the last week I have been meaning to write up our Flanders visit, but local conditions have superseded even my impressions of the Menin Gate.

We are embroiled in a heatwave that is like nothing I have ever experienced.

I spoke to an organic grower colleague yesterday whose fields are in the Nicosia district. ‘Asproulla,’ he said. ‘The radio says 46C in Nicosia, but the temperature at my land right now is 55C…’ I could hear him shaking his head. ‘This is murder!’

Not only is it hot, we are having record humidity – regularly in the 80’s and 90’s. I look out of the kitchen window, across the valley to Kouklia, and down to the sea, and there is only grey haze.

Usually in the summer we have eight or ten days, spread out over three months, where life becomes uncomfortable. We head for the beach, we fan ourselves with our hands, mop our brows, and say ‘Phew! Can’t wait for this to end!’ But even on those days, some respite comes with darkness, and opening the house to air it at dawn traps cool air inside that lasts through midday. The massive walls of our house mean that careful management of windows and doors makes keeping it cooler than outside easily possible. Fans improve life, and sleep is seldom a problem.

Not these last few days. The downstairs -- where the bedrooms are -- stays cooler thanks to convection, but upstairs is like an oven. Midway up the staircase, the air gets thicker, the wooden steps underfoot become hot, and the fans, even at full power, just shift the hot wet air around. There is no 'cool' upstairs. The absence of sun makes the room bearable but not pleasant.

All this began on Saturday afternoon. We had spent the day in Troodos with some friends whose government job earns them the perk of a mountain house for a week in summer. After passing Platres that evening, Best Beloved stuck his hand out of the window. ‘Try this, Manamou,’ he said. ‘It’s like a furnace…’ So it has continued.

And when I went out this morning to water the plants? Only a dribble came from the mains tap. We have 800 litres in the tank, so I hope that the municipal workers fix the water pipe – whatever is wrong with it – soon.

Summer Fun

Several years ago I decided that holidaying with my husband and holidaying with my children were not compatible. I try to be (mea culpa, I know) all things to all family members and end up stressed out and moody.

Best Beloved likes to go to restaurants or cook nice meals with local ingredients, drink good wine and visit the places where it’s made, sleep after lunch. His back problems make taking public transport with baggage, sleeping in different beds with different pillows, slow walking (museums, zoos, and window shopping…), and eating off anything but a table uncomfortable at best and with a worst-case scenario that includes stiffness, pain, and a need to spend long periods lying semi-supine on a hard floor. The children are more active but slower paced, thrive in marginal conditions, enjoy the varied experience of public transport, and for the most part do well with slow-paced pedestrian activities. When we went to the Greek islands two years ago I arranged the two-week segment that Best Beloved could be with us in a comfortable pre-booked apartment on the island of Patmos. During the other four weeks, the kids and I took pot-luck with ferries, busses, cheap and cheerful digs, and picnics.

So organising this summer’s Odyssey En Famille and keeping everyone happy was something of a masterpiece. Best Beloved did most of it. Building our destinations around the wines that he was interested in sampling and the fact that I believed that the Big Ones’ GCSE studies of World War One made a trip to Flanders a good idea (I had always wanted to go, too), he trawled the Web for well-appointed self-catering properties that were within our budget range and available between the end of school and late July, when his wine-making activities begin in earnest.

Our first house was in Edine Gaiano, not far from the shores of Lake Iseo . We spent twelve days there, driving around the lake, visiting the wine estates of Franciacorta, and exploring the alleys of Pisogne. All the children enjoyed swimming and fishing, especially on the island of Isola. One day we drove up into the foothills of the Alps. Sophia and I took a trip into Milan by train – despite being barred from the interior of the Duomo (I had wanted to go up to the roof) by not being sufficiently modest in dress, and having to scramble for some necessities, we had a good day out.

I am not a good passenger on long car trips, so to keep stress to a minimum, we had decided that I would take the train to Beaujolais – our next port of call and the jumping off point for me and the Big Ones to go to Flanders. So Best Beloved drove Zenon and me into Bergamo early one morning to start our trip to Bourg en Bresse. The trip to Milan Central on Trenitalia took an hour. Then we boarded a more luxurious International Express for the four hour journey to Geneva where we waited for an hour munching sandwiches on the platform and finally took the Paris-bound TGV for Bresse where Best Beloved picked us up for the last hour of the trip to Fleurie.

We had stayed in the same house six years earlier, and Monsieur and Madame welcomed us back, fanning flushed faces with their hands and apologising for the heat. The Big Ones and I only spent a night or two before heading for Macon Loche TGV station, Paris, and Lille en route to Poperinge. During our absence, Best Beloved took the Littles to the first class exhibition on winemaking at the Hameau du Vin in Romaneche-Thorins, and on several wine appreciation drives as well as spending time at the TouroPark and the Jardins Aquatique as well as fishing in a nearby tributary of the Saone. When we returned from Flanders (I’ll cover our visit next post) we had only two nights before heading back to Italy, but on one of those evenings, Best Beloved and I settled everyone with pizza and the tv remote and drove to the nearby village of Julienas for a first-class meal.

I had been unable to get train tickets for the trip back to Italy – no seats were available on any of the southbound trains – so I had to go by road. From where has my irrational fear come? Before I met Best Beloved I spent five years driving a right hand drive Toyota van all over Europe and the Middle East – from Cairo to Nord Capp and back via Kurdistan, Baghdad, and Damascus. Now the thought of spending a couple of hours on the Autostrada left me almost paralysed with terror.

“Just sit in the back and read your book, Manamou,” my husband advised. But in the end I was needed as navigator.

Unfortunately Casa di Gallo was not available for the entire remaining twelve days of our holiday, but we spent the final five nights at Wisteria Cottage just a few kilometers away. Wineries in Barolo and Barbaresco notwithstanding, the highlight of the area was, without a doubt, the municipal baths at the ancient spa town of Acqui Therme. Billed as the largest pool in Europe, its two swimming areas and spacious surrounds easily accommodated 500 people, and while the kids spent literally hours jumping and diving off the boards during the three afternoons that we spent there, Best Beloved swam laps and exercised constantly, thrilled at the therapeutic effect that it was having on his back.

Language? I used to speak passable Spanish and can manage (present tense only) in French, so Italian was challenging but not impossible and we all picked up a smattering -- come on, how hard is 'uno gelato, per favore... grazie!'? In France, Sophia found that her school French -- which includes past and future tenses! -- allowed her to communicate and to understand signs and menus -- only in Flanders were we somewhat stumped by Flemish (and given stink-eye if we spoke French!).

A word about food. Eating out as a family of six on a daily basis would have been prohibitively expensive, but… Italy is the land of pizza, and the most delicious pizza is only about 6 Euros… Best of all, all my children love pizza – the simpler, the better: Margharita with a little extra ham. Lunch? Done.

Fresh pasta and salads and a range of terrific, salamis, cheeses, and sauces – fresh basil pesto, walnut pesto – with a slab of barbequed steak or guinea fowl, or a roast chicken on the side – was on the menu most evenings, accompanied by a bottle (or two) of the terrific local wine – and for Best Beloved’s birthday (yes, I remembered it this year!) a half kilo of pistachio ice-cream to die for. My clothes all seem to have shrunk… I blame the washing machines!

So a family holiday that keeps us all pretty happy can be done. Maybe it’s because the children are all that bit older now; maybe I have mellowed somewhat and no longer hold myself responsible if not everyone has a perfect experience all the time. Next year? Well, let’s just wait and see.

Weary Donkey Arrives Home

At two yesterday morning we arrived back from our 4-week family Odyssey to the Continent. We had flown into Milan Orio al Serio airport on Blue Air (a Romanian budget airline that is now Cyprus based – our tickets were 6.50Euro, plus tax, each), rented a Mercedes mini-van, and stayed in self-catering accommodation in the Italian Lake District, Beaujolais, Flanders, and Piemont.

We had a good time: ate lots of pasta, drank lots of wine – or at least Best Beloved and I did, swam a lot, read a lot, played many games of cards. The weather was hot, and we had our fair share of moans – a trip that manages to address the needs and desires of adults, teens, and younger children is neither easy nor cheap, but we covered a lot of ground and everyone came home wiser.

Italy was surreal: as Sophia and I decided after our one day trip into Milan – we could not send a letter from the post office, we could not buy an International train ticket from the train station, we could not cash Travellers’ Cheques at a bank or Bureau de Change. Seeking information we were shuttled from pillar to post in a charming but frustrating manner, and what was supposed to have been a ‘girls’ bonding trip’ involving cafes and boutiques turned into scavenger hunt for stamps, cash, a bathing suit, and a ticket for me to travel from Milan to Macon the following week.

In France, Best Beloved sought the ultimate Beaujolais in the vineyards surrounding Fleurie with the Littles in tow, while I took the Big Ones up to Ypres to visit the battlefields of Flanders. We stayed at Talbot House, an everyman hostel that catered to all ranks during the Great War and now houses a poignant museum, and completed a 45 kilometre-cycle tour of trenches, cemeteries, and landmarks – leading Sophia to swear that she will never ride a bike again.

Back in Italy we stayed in two lovely houses in the Piemont region sipping Barolo, nibbling cheese from Roccaverano, and waiting for the Alps to reveal themselves from behind or beneath a haze of humidity. Finally, on one day, they did – a majestic and still-snow-covered arc that spanned the horizon. We agreed that May or October would proabably be a better time to visit. But would cooling off in the giant municipal pool down the road in Acqui Thermi been as welcome a respite in the cooler months? Would pistachio gelato been as delightful?

Leo managed to end the holiday on an appropriately surreal note by locking himself in a toilet stall in the airport as we prepared to fly out. Poor bambini! The service personnel had to break down the door to retrieve him, and he spent the rest of the trip warning us each time we visited the bathroom.

Then, after landing at Larnaca, our Scots captain David Blaney, who had flown us to Milan four weeks earlier, invited Zenon and Leo into the cockpit and explained the workings of the radar, the auto pilot, and a host of other buttons, screens, and levers. Zenon emerged with a grin as wide as the Po Valley and a new-found ambition to become a pilot.

Over the next few weeks I will post separate stories of our adventures as well as some pictures, as one post is not nearly enough to do justice to our adventures.

Greening up the Place

With respect to growing things, I’ve always said that if I can’t eat something, I’m not interested in planting it, but now that I have the vegetable side of things proceeding well, I am finding an increased interest in beautifying the surroundings with plants… in other words creating ornamental gardens.

The first place to get my attention was the back verandah. While I love the space (great for skateboarding, cricket, and running races), its clinical starkness, broken only by a stringy basil plant, has always depressed me. So Best Beloved and I focussed on it a couple of weeks ago with the idea of turning it into a sight more soothing to the eye rather than a cross between a runway and an operating theatre.

‘This end,’ he said rather pensively, referring to the far end off the sitting room. ‘I’ve been thinking of enclosing all together. We could turn it into a winter sun-room, and shade the windows in the summer with big blinds…’ So we left that end for now and concentrated on the kitchen end.

We’ve been considering a big barbeque to replace the foukou (Cypriot grill) for some time, but deciding the location took some haggling before we decided to site it around the side of the kitchen. There’s no point in having a view like ours if you go and block it with a barbeque, and the side is convenient to the kitchen and dining room, and downwind 95% of the time. We deferred the construction for a while, but moved the foukou to its new spot.

Next… ‘I’ve been thinking of some big pots with maybe a bay tree and a lemon near to the back door,’ I began tentatively.

‘A lemon tree in a pot?’ Best Beloved roared. ‘They’ll never stop laughing at us, Manamou!’ But he wants a lemon tree, too, so the idea took root.



‘Then tall pots, like the ones we saw at Green Forest last year,’ I continued. ‘One for each roof support…’ He warmed to the idea more and more and before I knew it we were at the nursery choosing pots and plants, and arranging to have them delivered that very afternoon.


Two days after the plants were installed a vicious wind tore all the leaves from the lime – he chose a lemon for near the other door and planted it, to save his reputation, in the ground – and withered the wisteria and the jasmine. But nurturing and plenty of water has put new life into them, and looking out of my kitchen window is now a double pleasure: I see both the wonderful view down the valley to the sea, and the gentle waving of healthy greenery.















Now to look out for the side garden.

Medical Morning

Alex and I had a medical morning.

Last night, while sparring in Tae Kwon Do, he kicked someone who used his elbow to block. Elbow connected with instep, and Alex was worried that he had broken a bone in his foot.

Although I knew that there is not much that can be done for him – he was walking, albeit painfully, and he said that some movements made him feel sick – I said that I would take him to the nearest private hospital, Iasis, for an x-ray after dropping Sophia at school. I didn’t want to face the bureaucracy of the General without Best Beloved to smooth the way.

So at 7.30 this morning, we rocked up to Casualty under the sign ’24 Hours’. Casualty was empty. We went around to reception and I explained our mission. “Oh, you’ll have to wait half an hour or forty-five minutes”, said the receptionist. “Staff aren’t here yet.” Alex and I discussed waiting or checking somewhere else, and the receptionist helpfully said: “And we’re closed between noon and four!”

“What,” I asked her “happens if someone needs an emergency x-ray at lunchtime?” She didn’t understand.

I called Evangelismos (another private clinic), but their radiography department wasn’t open until eight, either. We opted for the General Hospital, and I checked my wallet to make sure I had the ‘Poly Techni’ card, the card that says that as a family of at least four children we are entitled to free state medical care. Only problem was we are not pre-registered at the hospital for any care, and previous experiences of the State medical system did not bode well.

“Prepare for a Cultural Experience!” I told my son.

“Beats school,” was his answer.

We drove to the General, but could we find parking? One would think that in designing a new hospital for a mushrooming town fifteen years ago, the architects would have made enough parking spaces, but no. We parked on the street 300 metres from A&E. Once in the door into the empty department, I said to the nurse under a sign marked ‘Triage’: “ I need an x-ray for my son; he thinks he’s broken his foot.”

“This boy?” she said. “The one who’s walking?” But we filled out the forms, showed our poly techni card, and almost immediately were seen by a doctor who poked the lump on the side of Alex’s instep, grunted, and motioned down the hall to the x-ray department.

More forms. “Can you tell us how long we’ll be waiting?” I asked the receptionist. “Not long,” she assured me. “There’s just one ahead of you and then they’ll call you.”

We sat on the slatted wooden benches and looked around the crowd.

Most of the patients were older people from the villages. Neatly dressed, well groomed, and bearing themselves well. None looked ill; there were no emergencies here, just routine visits requiring endless waiting on the hard chairs, a gossip with neighbours and friends from previous visits. There was some good-natured grumbling about how ‘we could die in here in turn waiting to be seen’, but by and large people waited quietly. An electronic counter on the wall proclaimed ‘Your turn’ but the number space below was blank. A hand-lettered sign on the wall notified us that if we missed our turn for any reason, we would have to reregister. People kept coming in, going to the desk, signing in, sitting down. The room grew stuffy.

Lise’s mother-in-law arrived for her weekly check-up, immaculate in her widow’s black, gold cross on her chest, each grey curl in place. She recognised me and we chatted for a while but I found her rapid Paphos dialect too fast to follow properly and she smiled and turned to the man at her side who was from the same village – but not before inviting me, with the infinite hospitality of the Cypriot villager “To come some time with Lise and drink coffee with me at my house.” I assured her that some day I would.

After an hour Alex went to the desk. “Can you tell me how long I’ll be waiting, because I’m missing school?” The woman shrugged. “God knows.”

An elderly woman emerged from the corridor leaning on a stick. “I was the first,” she announced. “They’ve only just started on the queue down there.”

“Mum, let’s go,” he said. “You won’t be charged because although we’ve signed in, I haven’t had a procedure, and this is just a waste of time!” I looked around at the handsome, patient faces in the waiting room and had to agree with him. We weren’t retired with nothing else to fill the day, but I hated to leave the foot unattended.

As we walked across the parking lot, Alex winced again. “Maybe we’d better go to Evangelismos,” he said. “They’d be open now, and where the doctor poked me, my foot really hurts.”

A young man in blue scrubs was behind the desk at Evangelismos A&E. He took Alex’s details and an elderly doctor made a quick exam. “Might be broken,” he said. “X-Ray’s down the hall.”

We didn’t wait at all. The Bulgarian technician took Alex straight in and, spotting Alex’s uniform quizzed us while we were waiting for the pictures about Alex’s school. We had to wait a while for the radiographer to confirm no fracture, but chatted with the receptionist – who turned out to be a paramedic friend of SH who taught my Emergency Care course last year, and also the man who took such good care of my friend Angela when she had a mini-stroke last year. Angela had sung his praises to me several times: how patient he was with her, and how reassuring. I was glad to be able to pass on her thoughts.

I dreaded the bill. Private hospitals have a reputation for charging the proverbial arm and leg, but the doctor waived his fee, and when he heard that we have only in-patient insurance, the receptionist charged us only for the x-ray and the bandaging. We paid only 44 Euros – less even for when SH brought me in in the ambulance during the course for a dicky heart after a hornet sting.

Alex tried to weasel out of returning to school but I wouldn’t let him. I did let myself off the gym, and three and a half hours after I’d left the house, walked in the door to face the breakfast dishes.