Tour de France

‘How I remember Normandy, 1968’  by Susie Mallett, July 2012

It is not often that I wish that I had a television

In fact I am usually very pleased that I do not have one and never have owned one of my own.

But, today I would have liked to be near one just to have been able to watch the closing stages of this year’s Tour de France. I would like to see it tomorrow too as the riders pedal along the Champs-Élysées, but today’s 19^th stage time-trials will decide whether Bradley Wiggins, who has been wearing the yellow jersey since stage seven, steps up on the podium tomorrow in first place, probably with his team colleague beside him.

I have no television and I am, as always, content with just listening, or reading about it all in the papers, later on. As I write I have heard that Team Sky have taken first and second places in today’s time trial so there will be a lot of Union Flags flying high in Paris tomorrow. I wonder if my Canadian cousin, who lives just around the corner from the finishing line, will be there to witness it and cheer for me too.

It looks pretty good for Team GB’s cycling squad for the following weeks in the Olympic races.

A trip down memory lane

When I was ten-years-old, on an exchange trip with the school in France, my host family took me on a car journey to the Normandy countryside, not far from Rouen one of Norwich's  twinned cities. I had no idea at the time why I was sitting there in a Van Gogh landscape, in burning sunshine, beside a picnic-table in a field, with other families spread along the country road doing just the same.

I remember so clearly how intrigued I had been and how I had wondered what this strange custom could possibly be. I was none the wiser when what seemed to me like thousands of cyclists whizzed past us in a blink of an eye!

It was not until years later, when cycling became a bit of a passion for me too, that I realised that we had been there to watch the Tour de France and that I had actually seen the riders pass by in the 4^th, or perhaps 5^th, stage of the 1968 Tour de France. My pen friend’s father was a sports teacher, so of course he would have been very interested, just as I am now.

Some British events become a part of family life

London, 2012

Sometimes I am very glad to be in Britain when certain televised events take place. Strangely enough they are mostly sporting events and royal occasions that catch my attention enough to sit in front of the television.

This year I was glad to be with my Dad to see the middle bit of Wimbledon. This was extra special because of the success of Scotland’s Andy Murray.

On another visit I saw snippets of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee weekend and although I was only at home for part of it, that was enough. I was also able to watch the Epsom Derby, another family viewing highlight, taking place on the same weekend.

I seem to have caught quite a few recent highlights on my now more regular trips to England.

I realise that I even saw the Royal Wedding in 2011, and this year I caught both Ladies’ Day at Ascot Races and the chaos at the Boat Race.

I remember that on Boat-Race Day I received a text from a friend in Surrey that said something like — ‘What chaos!’

I replied – ‘How did you know that I would be watching the Boat Race?’

To which the friend replied – ‘What else would you be doing?’

How right he was. What else indeed?

Last year I was with the same friend in the middle of Norwich waving my flag while watching the Last Night of the Proms on a big screen in the rain with several other mad dogs and Englishmen!

I do not wish to own a television but it is still nice to occasionally catch the occasions that have become a part of our family life. The Tour de France has not been one of the family occassions, but, this year, with the Brits in such good form it would have been a pleasure to have watched some of its stages with my Dad. Maybe later this summer I will get the chance to watch some of the Paralympics, but that of course depends how much airtime it is given.

Notes

Mad dogs and Englishmen – 

 The Muppets – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASrXlOr-p1c

Noel Coward – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ccGh8-Ipww&feature=related

What a difference a day makes!

With Dad on top of the world, Sheringham, Norfolk, June 2010

A wide horizon

Dad, in the pink

The azalias and rhododendrons in Sheringham Park,
Norfolk, June 2nd 2010

Looking for the action

A day certainly makes a difference when it is a day when a child discovers that it is possible to go just about anywhere. A day of discovering that it is possible to go independently to wherever the action is without having to ask to be taken there or be passively taken where no interesting action is.

Widening horizons

This is what one of my littlies discovered last Sunday, the day of the Sommerfest. On this day this littlie’s horizons opened up and made a huge impression on her life and on the lives of many others.

Littlie cycled the half a mile or so from home to the summer fete and then just as we had discussed the day before she abandoned the bike for a new big-girl size rolator (she is seven years old). And whoosh….. not only were her horizons wider, offering a lot of new experiences, but her eyes were so wide with the feast of newness that they almost popped out of her head. She was experiencing a very different kind of freedom to that which her bike gives her. On the bike she can be fast, very fast indeed and sometimes even reckless. With the rolator she can only be slow and careful. On the bike contact with others people is hardly possible, with the rolator how different this was. Littlie was going places by foot and actually meeting people face to face on the way.

It does not matter if it is a fete or a party, a holiday, a concert, a trip in the country or to the seaside. Wherever it is it will make all the difference if the going there and the being there is an independent-as-possible experience.

It is the going places because you want to and because you can that is so important. And of course also the deciding to go on to somewhere else that is important too.

Firsts

We all know how good we feel when we achieve something for the first time alone. Something we have worked hard for or something we had previously been afraid to do. It can be a parachute jump or drinking coffee in a café in the city. It can be a bus ride alone or a walk around a summer fest with a rolator. They all give us that same wonderful feeling of achievement and independence. They give us that joy of a first-time experience.

Mingling with the crowds

I was at the summer fete for the first time as a guest. For the past fifteen years I have always had something to organise, a paper-mache art action, a summer bonnet making extravaganza, a recycled clothes fashion show and painting activities galore. This year I was able to mingle and socialise and also to be a conductor!

I moved from coffee with one family to lunch with the next and then on to tea and cakes with another and an evening, after-its-all-over, beer with my colleagues! During the in-between times I could watch the professional golf team teaching children golf, the adult motor cycle group taking the little ones for a spin, children riding go carts and adults chatting with friends and parents. I met the blind man and his dog who was a visitor in my adults group in the spring, and who wants to come again next week and I met a Lebanese university professor who had just arrived from Texas.

A highlight was meeting some of our very first “Petö” children, now adults and teenagers, and watched their joy as they met up with each other.

I met colleagues from different departments and I made new contacts and renewed old ones. During all this coming and going there were quite a few jokes coming my way about Germany’s good, and England’s bad, beginning in the World Cup.

A multi-cultural day out

While I was mingling amongst the crowds now and then I came across Littlie with her rolator. Sometimes I accompanied her on a difficult stretch of ground giving her a few instructions on how to negotiate small steps and verges, at others I just watched. She was having a great time. I could see the interest on her face, the concentration and the sense of achievement. So many people stopped in their tracks as they saw her for the first time on her own two feet, she just beamed and nodded as they asked her questions. It was too strenuous and too loud to attempt to use her new found voice at the same time as walking and standing. That did not matter we could all see the difference this day way making, she was doing what she wanted and doing it alone. She was stopping here and there for a chat, watching this game and that. She played golf with a Scotsman and ate cake with an English lady. She even hopped into a motorcycle’s side-car and rode off into the distance for forty minutes with a German. She was meeting strangers with confidence and doing it all alone.

That day really did make a difference

That day gave that littlie so much confidence that she is walking all over the place this week. Grandma brings the rolator and walks home with her after Petö sessions and mum walks with her holding her hand.

I think the difference began the week before while on holiday, everyone in the family had had time to go walking with her. She discovered that yes, it is possible and on Sunday at the fest with crowds of familiar and some not so familiar faces she could mingle and meet people , she could walk and even attempt some talk.

Other lives, other differences

That day not only made a difference to Littlie’s life. Her mother saw what she could do and told the story at home to Dad and Grandma. The riding teacher saw Littlie for the first time on two legs and not four, and showed her joyous surprise. One of the “old girls” saw littlie and was reminded of her first attempts at walking with exactly the same type of rolator and rejoiced in the results of her own hard work. Mums of these “old” conductive families also saw this and reflected on how worthwhile their own hard work had been and could convey this to the “new” mums.

The bosses saw conductive lifestyles in action and were even more convinced that money is being spent in the right places and I, as always learnt an awful lot. I also wished I had more colleagues so could give more clients the opportunity of discovering what a difference a day makes.

Notes

What a difference a day makes,

Dinah Washington-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmBxVfQTuvI

Dinah Washington and Ronald R.-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10pJTuXmtHs&feature=related

A trip down memory lane,

What a difference a day makes, Benkó Dixie Band, Budapest -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmtG0-RLicI&feature=related

Paintings at an exhibition

"Forest, after David Hockney"

"Three butterflies"

"Toucan"

"Cuckoo, duck and dolphins"

"Hockneyesque trees, an after-Chagall horse ,and an original KK bee"

Action stations

In the TWTWTW week I finally got to see the exhibition that my art-therapy client and colleagues and had put together just the day before I left for England in September. I described the last-minute action and amazing cooperation of various colleagues in an earlier posting, "The Spontaneous Vernissage"

I missed the private view but have been told by all of those concerned that it was a great success. Several people told me that my client had felt very proud to have his work hanging on the walls and he gave everyone present the feeling that he was thoroughly enjoying himself. My client, diagnosed as autistic, also said a few words of welcome at the private view, standing beside his father and his social worker.

It was not until TWTWTW, that is two weeks ago now, that I finally had the time to go to the BUNI-TREFF to have a look for myself. It was quite impressive. The exhibition space is situated in the café and extends up an open stairway stairway. Large paintings hung on the stairway can be viewed from below quite easily. I was really impressed by how the paintings had been framed by the "Man Friday" at the Verein. Just a sheet of hard board and a thin strips of wood attached with double-sided tape. A a perfect frame for the almost three-dimensional pieces behind glass would have lost some of their energy.

A wholesome sight

I knew all the pictures. Most of them had been painted in our art-therapy sessions and I had seen them en masse as we delivered them at the Buni-Treff, but somehow they looked so different on the walls. They were no longer separate items, they had become a unity. The whole of my client's work to date. It really was quite impressive to see and, while for me it was a good feeling to see them like this, I think for my client it must have been even more satisfying.

I have only once in my life exhibited a group of paintings. It was a joint exhibition and only for one day, at a congress, but nevertheless I remember the feeling of satisfaction that I had when the set of paintings was completed and hung on display to the public. My client most certainly felt this too, although unable to express it in words. I could see his pleasure in his face and, as my colleagues reported, it was also obvious in his behavior at the private view.

An afternoon out and about

It is a long time now since my Indian-Summer holiday in England that followed the blitz of organizational action for the exhibition. This week the exhibition came to an end as it was time for the next artist’s work to be put on display. We juggled appointments for the three of us, me, my client and the same Man Friday who framed the pictures, so we all could go together, with a small van to take the pictures down from the walls.

We added another new experience to my client's gradually richer and richer life, we made more connections for him in a gradually widening social world, and at the end we all sat down for a coffee together.

All in all the experience was a great success. My client experienced a situation that not many artists are lucky enough to be in, a solo exhibition. He had done everything that he needed to do, with aplomb. We all got to know a few more people, kindred souls who are now willing to work on similar projects with us.

In this case a little imagination, a lot of pulling together and a few spontaneous decisions worked wonders on the lives of several people, not forgetting all those who were able to view the paintings.

The paintings

I nearly forgot them!

When they were hanging it was interesting to see that the underlying interest that my client has in nature really did shine through.

There were a variety of birds, there were plants and insects and trees. What I enjoyed most was the brightness, the humour, the sense of fun displayed in the paintings and collages, the liveliness of the colours and the textures of the materials.

We have decided that, instead of leaving these beautiful works of art in a box, we will exhibit them in or work place until we find another gallery space to put them on public view.

A big thank-you to the Buni-Treff, the boss at the Verein and my two colleagues for all their help in making this wonderful new and spontaneous experience possible. I look forward to lots more work in this team.

Notes

Earlier posting on this subject -

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2009/09/spontaneous-vernissage.html

Bunitreff – Der BUNI - Kultur- und Freizeittreff -
http://www.bunitreff.de/

TWTWTW -

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2009/11/twtwtw.html

Hanging in the air

"Waiting for the weather", Balaton, Hungary 2007

James Rose had his skydive scheduled for 11.00 this morning. The last bulletin I received was yesterday and James was feeling positive but the weather it seems was not playing ball.

James reported:

“Tomorrow’s jump is still scheduled to go ahead but not guaranteed due to the current weather forecasts. We must stress this as forecasts indicate weather which is not suitable for skydiving. If you are coming to watch us jump – thanks! However, please bear this in mind when planning your trip.”

Lets hope the weather conditions were favourable today and that the team are now all celebrating in the bar at Skydive Weston - RAF Weston on the Green, in Bicester, Oxfordshire.

I am waiting with anticipation for the first news of the jump to reach the skydive website:

http://likeabatoutofhell.co.uk/the-jump-zone/index.html

Notes

James Rose was at the Petö Institute, he lived with his family in Budapest for several years when he was very young. I knew him and his family when I was a student there, 1989-1993.

read more at:

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2009/06/skys-limit.html