Wallpaper

It was a great thought: no more primary school, people would be taking him more seriously. First the summer and after that he would go to school by bicycle in the city instead of going to the small building in the village. There would be new things to study, it all would be fabulous! He really looked forward to have a lot of schoolbooks.

Father took him apart, told him that there was a job in the house that needed to be taken care of. He expected to hear that he had forgotten about polishing the shoes of the whole family or that the grass needed another cut. But no, Father had something special: the walls of the living room were covered in wallpaper that had seen better days. Years of smoking by him and guests had changed the wallpaper's basic white colour into yellow. So he had bought new and it was a man's job to put it on the walls. Father made it sound like a big honour that he had been chosen to help. What made it extra special was that it all was going to happen in the night. No women (he meant Mother and the sisters) would be around.

That night the whole family, except for Father and the boy, went to bed quite early. They dragged all the furniture out of the room and put them outside in the garden at the back of the house. Father got a special table he had kept in the shed, it needed to be folded out and was quite long. Together they put it together and after that he got loads of little rolls of wallpaper. He had it all cut on the right length days before. The boy had never noticed.

He also had a big bucket full of glue, he must have prepared that in the afternoon. The son never noticed he had done this either. There were also two big brushes, not something suitable for a painting. The boy got involved in the next step: he had a pair of scissors tied to a rope. the son had to stand on a chair with the rope while the man draw a line with a huge pencil over the rope. "So we know where to start."
The boy nodded, the man seemed to know what he was doing. He himself had thought you could start in a corner or next to a door, told this to Father. He had to laugh, it probably was a silly thought.

He took a roll, asked his son to hold the end and he straightened it, put an ashtray on his end. After that he put the glue on with one of the brushes, while the boy was just holding the paper till he had wetted it with glue. He folded the wet paper once and got on the chair, putting the paper exactly on the line he had drawn. He pressed it partly and then the younger one was asked to unfold it. He wanted to press the lower bit with the other brush to push some air bubbles out, but had to step aside. Father did that himself. He also cut a bit off, because it was a bit too long. The boy watched and felt useless.

The next roll was hung the same way; while he was cutting the lower end, I asked if I should start putting glue on the next roll. The answer was clear, definitely not. This went on all night, when the day had really started he did the parts of the wall where the sockets were. That needed extra care: he pinched holes in the paper and cut around it, so the electric wires were visible. He had taken the electricity off, of course. He remembered when they had done the wallpaper in the old house, he had been 6 or 7 years old and very curious. The nice red, blue and green wires could give you quite a shock, he had experienced. He never told his parents about this and would not do so that day either.

The work was finished when Mother came downstairs. She was very pleased with both of them: it looked great, the boy thought so too. She was going to make breakfast after they had put the furniture back. Father put two deckchairs on the empty spots in the garden. He sat down in one and gestured the son to sit next to him. Mother brought sandwiches and a glass of buttermilk. She told Father that the coffee was in the make. He gave her the thumbs up. The man and the boy ate in silence and he drank his buttermilk. After that Father stretched out on the chair and fell asleep. Mother came with his coffee, saw him asleep and put her finger on her lips. "Shh."

The boy got up very carefully, not to wake Father and went to his bedroom. While he heard his sisters going downstairs, he got into bed. The windows were open, it was going to be a glorious day. He tried to sleep, envied Father: the man could sleep everwhere at any time. He could hear children playing in the street and kept turning around in bed until he had enough of it. He got up and went downstairs. Father and Mother were drinking coffee together. He told them he could not sleep and was going to play a bit of football if his mates were around.

Father stopped him: "Thanks for helping out. We did a great job together. Some day we'll do it again."
The boy nodded: "Sure", but a little voice in his head told him it would never happen again.
"Bye now!" He ran off to the street.
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Old People

In my younger years I have been flying a lot, but nowadays there is a lot I don't like about it. I very much dislike the uncomfortable chairs in planes and the unfriendly security on airports. They treat you like you probably will let the plane explode: so they let you sweat shoeless in spaces without airconditioning, try to have your trousers sinking to your knees by forcing you to take your belt off, make a mess of your luggage if they can and dispossess any liquids you want to take along on a flight.

In reality nowadays the danger is lurking from within the plane, technical failures and manic depressive pilots threaten your life. To add to the danger there are misinformed military who will shoot rockets to try to bring you down. All in all enough reason for me to travel by cruise ship. Maybe I'm an old moaner, but it's a lot more pleasant. Of course there still are security checks, but they are done discreetly and with much patience and friendliness.

On the ships is good food and quite good entertainment. We love the classical music they provide and always attend the recitals. The music is very relaxing and that shows in the position of the audience: often you see the majority of the people asleep on their chairs or almost nodding off. You can't really blame them: you really have to have a thorough search before you can find passengers younger than 65. The listeners probably are used to having a little kip in the afternoon.

After a piano recital we decided to stay in the room, which was transformed to a venue for Afternoon Tea. Next to us an elderly couple took seats and while we were enjoying the little sandwiches, the small cakes and scones, we had a conversation with them. Like always, soon there were the exchanges of experiences and the comparing of cruises of different companies.

I asked them: "What do you think of SAGA?"
Answer: "Not something for us! These ships are always full with old people."
I almost choked in my coffee, but managed to keep a straight face.
We waited until the couple was gone before we had a big laugh and looked around us. I don't think there was anybody younger than 70 in the room. We cheered: "Wow, we really are young people!"
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Overners

The rain was supposed to continue the rest of the day, but suddenly stopped and the sun brightened everything. We decided to escape from the house and have a walk after all. It's a short drive to St.Helen's, to the Duver and because we like it, we went over there for some fresh air.

Everything was wet and soaked, it caused the seaweed on the beach to be less smelly. Normally there is an odour of rotting when the tide is ebbing, but even with an amazing low tide the air now was as clean as it looked fresh. In the blue sky the full moon was visible, always a strange sight during daytime.

From our island we could see the mainland on the other side of the Solent, the winter sun shone on Portsmouth and made reflections of the Spinnaker Tower, so it looked like it was a source of light.
In the distance four "parked" freight ships were on the water, together with the ferry that moved quickly along, on it's way to Brittany. Far away to the right the Condor came in sight, this ferry coming from the Channel Islands.

Seagulls were bobbing on the water, a group of geese flew over, some crows were searching for food next to a bin, sanderlings ran over the beach, frequently pecking in the sand. A few people were walking their dogs on the beach. All in all, there is always a lot to see on and near the Solent. We were standing still, just admiring the sight.

"What a lovely sight, isn't it?" An elderly lady was standing on the edge of the car park, looking at the same things as us. We discussed living on the island. We had been living there longer, but I stated that - of course - this didn't make us Islanders. We all agreed, we were Overners in the eyes of the Islanders. It's hard to become an Islander, it's impossible. You have to be born on the island to be one. It's also hard to become really acquainted to Islanders, it sometimes even looks like that you only get more words from them when there is a profit to be made, the old lady joked.

So we agreed again that it was really lovely to live on the island and that it was important for Overners to be friendly and communicate with each other. We told her we should resume our walk and after exchanging names said goodbye to the friendly lady. She was going to search for her husband and their three rescue dogs.
"See you next time!"
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