Tamping - Forget the Coffee, Get the Teapot

 

I’ve just been trying to read an article about what happens if I tamp expresso too hard. I quickly lost interest and gave up. On the occasion that I might have a cup of coffee, presently once a day, it is from a jar of instant Nescafe Gold. It will do for me. Visitors to my house can have the same, or choose between regular Nescafe or decaf. At the moment, there are still a few sachets of instant latte lurking in the beverage cupboard, left over from when we thought them a good idea. Nescafe, of course, but unwanted, not liked, still in date. I’m baffled by coffee menus in Costa, Starbucks and similar. On reading the first sentence of that article, I'd satisfied  myself I’m not missing out on anything. I don’t need a coffee maker or a tamping mat, though the mat could possibly have other uses.

Morecambe promenade, circa 1960. Sunday morning with my visiting grandparents always involved going to church – Sunday School for me – then a stroll along the front to what I think must have been Nanna Hetty’s favourite café. We had cups of coffee, even me at age five or six. It was either to warm me up on a cold day, or the huge glasses of squash were considered too much. I enjoyed these excursions and remember feeling quite grown up having coffee and popping two light-brown sugar cubes into the cup. I don’t think there was any fuss about choice. Coffee was coffee and in our house and Nanna Hetty’s house, it was in a small, round tin, in powder form. A few years later, when I was old enough to go to the shop by myself, I sometimes bought an individual sachet of instant Nescafe for a few pence. This was old money, pre-decimal. It was just the coffee, not the ones with added milk powder that are available today. I wonder then, when did all these types of coffee and the use of tamping mats come about?

Italian brothers, Sergio and Bruno Costa started their coffee bean roastery in London around 1971 and opened their first coffee bar in 1981. In Seattle USA, the Starbuck team of business partners Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl were doing the same thing around the same time. Fifty-plus years later, they are both globally established, offering a long list of different coffees, keeping their baristas busy with their tamping mats. My daughter doesn’t generally like coffee, maybe a caramel latte, but on a short holiday in London when she was about fourteen, she carried a takeaway Costa cup everywhere as it seemed to be the thing to do. And she didn’t walk with us, she was either a little in front, or a couple of paces behind. Funny that.

Well, those of you with tamping mats, coffee makers, even percolators or coffee bean grinders, you know what you like, so enjoy. I'll have a pot of strong tea. A good builder's brew.

My Haiku,

Who wants a latte?
What’s ordinary coffee?
Is it a flat white?

The Barista’s job,
What is tamping all about?
What is expresso?

Why a tiny cup?
I’ll have English Breakfast Tea,
Yes, tea. Very strong.

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Handwriting - Don't Lose the Basics

 

I used to take pride in my handwriting, though these days it is limited to a shopping list or a quick note. I’ve received many compliments for my ‘beautiful handwriting’ which may have started with my interest in calligraphy.  I’ve enjoyed the privilege of doing the place cards for weddings and formal functions as my reputation grew. Over the years my style has changed and become a bit scruffy, to say the least and it’s probably down to lack of use. I can’t blame it on the lymphoedema.

Handwriting was an important lesson at school. My childhood was spent learning how to correctly form individual letters, how they sat on the line, which were tall and which were not.  We practised on specially lined paper, using a fountain pen or a dipped ink pen, after a pencil had been mastered sufficiently for the approval of the teacher. How the letters linked together into what we called ‘real writing’ followed the specific rule of the pen not leaving the paper mid-word, so a character ending below the line would need to be looped back to the line to form the next one. This was the way we were taught and we had to adhere to it. Individual style came later.

My secondary school exercise books, which I still have, show my various experiments in handwriting with some comments from teachers – ‘Do this again in blue or black ink’ (my preferred turquoise Quink was an individual step too far)  ‘This is not an art lesson. No more unnecessary flourishes’.  Eventually I settled into something like a Chancery script and quite far removed from the cursive handwriting I’d grown up with. I think I still write like that.  I used my calligraphy skills to copy a couple of my favourite sonnets which I hung on the wall in matching frames. They need re-doing with ink fit for purpose; another little job on my lockdown ‘to do’ list.

I’m helping out with some home-schooling for my eldest grandson. He’s only five and missing school, which he loves. I really feel for him. He needs his teacher, his peers and the dynamics of his classroom activities. For now he’s got Nanna’s old-fashioned teaching skills coupled with bags of patience, I hope. He is a whizz kid at maths and number work. He needs some encouragement with handwriting. Yesterday was handwriting day, just when he wanted to play. I have lessons emailed to me by my daughter for him to work on with my help. It wasn’t long before I thought I was reciting a Joyce Grenfell sketch.

‘Sit still, dear.’

‘Move to where you can see, then.’

‘Try to keep hold of your pen.’

In an effort to keep things fun, I got the easel out, chalk-board facing, plenty of chalk and words for him to sound out and write on the board. That went well, he was focused and I took a photo to send to his mum. Not much actual handwriting done, never mind. After a play-break, I found him something about dinosaurs on BBC Bitesize KS1. I think it was a science lesson. He enjoyed the interaction with that so much that he had to do it twice. He already knew how to ‘scroll and click’. Of course he did, silly me, he is Year One. We’ll return to his proper school work and do some handwriting another day. There’s no substitute for basic skills.

I wrote this poem a few years ago. Forgive me if you've heard it before. 

An Alternative Education

 

The 3Rs soon to be redundant

Computer-led kids will be abundant

With all information mega-quick

It only takes a scroll and click.

No need for any conversation

Included in their education.

 

Last year’s reception class have all gone

And taken a leap up to Year One

To drag sticky fingers on IPad screens

And work out what technology means.

Will this be their basic foundation

Instead of formal education?

 

Numeracy, or let’s call it Maths

Has rules to follow specific paths,

Beginning with learning how to count

Then adding up and sharing out.

One click away from calculation

Takes away their education.

 

When did this digital preference start?

Oh why no poetry learnt by heart?

‘Spell check’ becomes their favourite teacher

With ‘grammar check’ and added feature.

The only future expectation,

A self-taught on-line education.

 

The infants are learning to use a pen.

It’s not a skill they’ll need again

For a future spent staring on-line,

Social activity in decline

With hardly any interaction,

So they won’t need our education.

 

PMW  2015

Thanks for reading, take care and keep well. 

If you're home-schooling or trying to occupy infants, keep smiling. They love you.  Pam x

 

 

 

 

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Optimism - 2020 Vision

It was New Year’s Eve. We expected a quiet evening in, just the two of us, but the best things can happen on the spur of the moment, so on our daughter’s suggestion, we walked round the corner to her house.

 My husband and I, with our daughter and son-in-law-to-be settled into their cosy front room for a late evening game of Monopoly before the arrival of the year 2020. We were all full of optimism as we set out the board, nominated my husband as banker and anticipated our individual winning strategies. We had great fun, sprawled on the floor, asking each other to move our counters when they were out of reach. I always end up straggling behind everyone else, regardless of what properties I buy, or not. First I needed to land on something but my trips round the board took me to Chance, Community Chess, Visiting Jail then on two occasions I was sent to Jail. The others were negotiating the purchase of houses before I’d completed my first (my only) set of matching properties. None of that mattered. I was loving the family time and enjoying the carefree banter between us. Upstairs, three infants continued to sleep soundly, undisturbed by our laughter or the New Year fireworks. We took a break from play to welcome 2020, hug each other and start our midnight feast with some delicious pizza. I discovered that I was fixed to the floor. Hips, knees and lower back had given up, despite the restless legs that had kept me wriggling for two hours. The others very kindly brought me food and drink, to save me the trouble of getting up properly. It was the best New Year’s Eve, just a simple evening with the warmth of family.

We wandered home around two a.m. both of us remarking on how unusually quiet the neighbourhood seemed for New Year’s Eve and reminiscing on past times in the local pub, too loud for conversation, too busy at the bar and too full for comfort.

I am optimistic for the year ahead and for the plans of others in my family. I should add that I’m not generally known for optimism, so let’s see.

 

My own poem,

 

I’m greeting New Year with a smile

    As optimism flows
     For hopes and wishes to come true,
     I’d like more highs than lows.

 I want a change of scenery,

     Uninterrupted view
     Of the river and countryside
     And variable hue.

 A welcome change of circumstance

      Is one thing I desire.
      I’d like to re-locate myself
     This year, can I retire?

 Without work place ties to bind me

      My writing spirit’s free.
      It’s what I really want to do,
     This optimistic me.

 So let me loose with fountain pen

     To tell a tale or two,
     And I’ll be fulfilled and happy,
    “To thine own self be true.”

 PMW 2020

 

 

A Happy New Year to everyone. Thanks for reading, Pam x

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