Me and how to entertain yourself when bored: part 1

As a child there always seemed to be hours of time to fill and despite busying myself with reading Mallory Towers, playing with Barbie and writing poems I was often bored.  It was about this time that my passion for making things started.   Anyway I'll pass on a few of my childhood craft ideas in case you are suffering from ennui and need inspiration.


Then as now I have little patience for making things that don't give fairly immediate results; French Knitting was a quick win.  You need a wooden cotton reel (haven't seen one of these for a while) for the authentic Renka experience or a commercially-made knitting dolly.  Tap four small nails into the top of the reel, stuff a tail of wool through the hole - I'm getting a bit bored trying to describe this - so for excellent instructions I shall refer you to:  http://www.how-to-knit-guide.com/french-knitting.html.

Eventually a small woollen sausage will appear at the bottom of the cotton reel - if you are very impatient you can pull the tail and stretch the wool.  Keep going until you lose the will to live or you have run out of wool.  I would then sew the said sausage into hats, capes and skirts for my dolls.  Alternatively I'd sew them into circles and give them to Nan -she would (loyally) put them on her dressing table as coasters for flagons of  Oil Of Olay (aka Oil of Ugly ).

Another time-consuming activity was shoe box weaving (no - you are not weaving a shoe box - just read on).  Take the body of a shoe box, on the rims of the short-side cut shallow notches at about 1cm apart.  Knot some wool and thread it through a notch, take it to the far end and thread through the facing notch, wind around the tag (this instruction writing is obviously an art which is beyond me and a little dull) and then take it back up again.  Continue until all notches are full - you now have your warp.  You are now ready for the exciting (everything is relative) part. Take a small ruler and use it to lift up alternative warps and slide under a length of  wool to act as a weft or woof (those Anglo-Saxons really knew how to make a good word in my uttlerly biased opinion). If you vary the wool colours and don't pull it too tight you will produce a tiny magic carpet (or big if you happen to have very large feet) - warning this takes ages and ages.

Me, maths and Rhett Butler

Strangely I am put in the top class for maths at secondary school - either a case of mistaken identity or someone with a twisted sense of humour?  It seems to have escaped my teachers that maths has escaped me - but there was no hiding it when it came to public exams at 16.

The exams are a bit of a chore, but the best thing is that when we have finished a paper we are allowed to give it in and then sit quietly reading a book.  I am reading 'Gone with the Wind' and am obsessed with Rhett Butler (who in my imagination looks nothing like Clark Gable - I was utterly traumatised when I saw the film - much too smooth - no five o'clock shadow - anyway enough of my fevered imaginings...).

On the day of the maths exam I have got to a good bit in the book and can't wait to get back to Rhett.
'Oh Rhett,' - I'm saying that in my fluttery Scarlett O'Hara voice  - 'Oh Rhett, you are such a bad man!'  - these aren't Scarlett's actual words for any purists - just my interpretation of what she should have said, then they'd have got together quite a bit earlier.  Actually this talking to characters from books is becoming quite addictive - must do it more often - definitely Captain Wentworth next.  Slight dilemma do I stick to calling him Captain Wentworth or Frederick - don't want to be thought forward?

Anyway I speed through the simultaneous equations as the siren call of Mr Butler tempts me from the path of righteousness (Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn - sorry, so couldn't resist that).

When the results appeared in August it was not surprisingly that I have failed maths (so you don't think I am utterly sad I have to assure you that Rhett didn't have a negative effect on my other exams - my inner swot won out against the lure of literature).

I retake the exam twice in the Lower Sixth to no avail.  In desperation I am sent to a private tutor who happens to live in Christ Church - one of the Oxford colleges.  I am not thrilled to spend sunny afternoons doing maths, but I am thrilled to find out that the room where I sit was lived in by the Liddell family (Alice 'in Wonderland' Liddell).  Also that Lewis Carroll possibly sat on the same chair as me (not at the same time -that would have been creepy).  Oddly enough Carroll's academic field was mathematics - this confirming (to me anyway)  the rumours that there was something dubious about him.  I spend a fair bit of time talking to my tutor about Carroll - it is very interesting, the maths less so.

Inevitably I fail again.