Taking care of backs

Life drawing, by Susie Mallett January 2006

Yesterday I received some treatment for my back. All conductors should give their backs a treat at least once a month, if not once a week, as prevention rather than as an attempted cure as it was for me. Swimming, training at the gym, a gentle massage, anything which helps to take away the strain on the back.

I have had an aching back on and off since last June, when I was helping my Mum get comfortable in her hospital bed and something went click. The aches and pains come and go but this week they just would not go, despite having a Tens machine strapped to my back all week.

I decided that it was time to do something good for myself, treat myself a bit better than I usually do, so I took myself off to my GP, thinking that he would refer me to a physiotherapist. But no, he sent me downstairs to the stretching table!

Upside down

For a start he very gently manipulated my spine, bending my legs and pressing my shoulders until I felt something move back to where it should be. Then he surprised me by offering me a go on the table which turns one upside down! He began by fixing my feet as tightly as he could without breaking them, then he turned me and the table through 180 degrees so that I hung there, my outstretched finger tips almost touching the floor below my head. There I stayed for 60 seconds. The time will increase by one minute each session. The doctor was hoping that my spine would stretch and thereby any trapped nerves would be released. I am still waiting to find out whether it worked, it certainly felt good.

I came out of the surgery walking an inch taller and, as the evening went on, I ached all over, feeling as if I had survived ten rounds in the ring with Henry Cooper. The back pain appears to have eased off now, but every muscle in my body, right down to my finger tips, has come to life.

They all ache, but I am still walking tall.

Prevention is far better than cure

Maybe preventive exercising, massage, muscle-training etc. should be part of the contract that a conductor signs when she begins a new job. I know that there are some centres here in Germany, where massage and manipulation are available to the staff, sometimes on site, often free of charge. I have also heard that not many conductors take up the offer. This surprises me.

Conductors, whatever kind of therapy is on offer to keep the body healthy, please do make use of it. Try to prevent the backache rather than try to cure it later. The pain never really goes away once it is there.

I am off to the surgery again next week to be hung upside down by my feet after work, then on to the swimming pool.

Notes

Tens

From Wikipedia - "Electrical stimulation for pain control was used in ancient Greece, 63 A.D. It was reported by Scribonius Largus that pain was relieved by standing on an electrical fish at the seashore. In the 16th through the 18th century various electrostatic devices were used for headache and other pains". I use my Tens for all sorts of muscular/skeletal pain and have also found that it is the fastest and best remedy for migraine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcutaneous_Electrical_Nerve_Stimulator

Henry Cooper

"our 'Enry"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cooper_(boxer)

PS

At home we have an amazing machine, the like of which I have also seen in the Norwich Castle Museum. In a small wooden box is all the technical stuff, that I assume works something like a dynamo,and on the outside of the box is a handle to turn. The faster that the handle is turned the stronger is the current that passes through the cables to the two metal rods that one holds, one in each hand.

This machine always came out at Christmas time, in the bar of my Grandad's pub. We would all stand in a circle holding hands and I remember screaming for my Grandad to turn the handle faster and faster because I loved the tingly feeling. The more people in the circle then the faster he had to turn, otherwise we wouldn't feel anything.

In the Norwich Museum the label informed me that these boxes were used in the treatment of rheumatism. Can anyone tell me any more about them? The nearest that I have found in Google is below, but it differs from Grandad's. His doesn't have pads like the modern Tens, as this one does, but metal rods to hold.

http://www.thebakken.org/artifacts/database/artifact.asp?type=category&category=E4&offset=30&id=379

What do conductors wear on their feet, and why?

A page of my notebook, 2009

Shoes

I love shoes, I always have done, probably ever since a trip to Hamley’s Toy Shop in London when I was very young, perhaps only six years old. From all the wonderful toys on offer I chose for myself a small kitchen sink for my dollies to play with, which had real water coming out of the taps. My parents however were more adventurous in their choice for my Christmas present. Secretly they bought high, glittery, dark green Cinderella sandels for my sister and me, for the dressing-up box, I assume that they are still there!

They were beautiful, everything a girl could wish for in her Christmas stocking, even a girl who was always a tomboy!

My next pair of shoes with “a heel” was a pair of platforms that my sister bought for me when I was seventeen. I was still at school, whereas she was working and had some money, but she wasn’t just being generous. She was tempting me to go "up the disco" with her one Saturday evening when all her friends were busy doing something else.

I took a lot of persuading, as I was not into dressing up and dancing around handbags like she and her friends were. The platform shoes probably only got worn this once but I adored them.

As children we always placed new shoes on a small nursing chair between our beds, near enough to be caressed before falling asleep and again immediately on waking. New shoes were polished before they were worn and every evening thereafter, always by Dad, me with brushes and polish at hand, telling me about St. Crispin, the patron saint of shoemakers.

My Auntie made shoes. She worked in a shoe factory in Norwich and produced the sample shoe of all new designs. All our school shoes, that my Dad always bought with us, were taken to his sister for inspection and approval. My Dad loves shoes too and it was only on shoe-shopping trips that he ever ventured "up the city" with us. I loved this adventure and my only criterion was that the shoes must be made out of the sort of leather that polishes up so well that I could see my face in it.

So began my love of shoes, sensible shoes to wear and glittery shoes to drool over, just as with the cream cakes that I ogle through the glass of a disply case in the Parisian patisserie or in the cafes of Budapest, but would never dream of eating, so it is with shoes. I have spent years admiring and drooling over fashion shoes and even more as they have become ever more lip- smacking, but I would never think of wearing them.

In reality I always wore sensible shoes, shoes for walking, shoes for cycling, shoes for the snow and perhaps one pair in the back of the cupboard for a trip to the theatre. All with the lowest of low heels.

Things have changed, however. Since I moved to the city, I don’t always have a bike with me, I don’t always have to climb on and off trams and stand hours at bus stops, so the shoes in my cupboard are now less sensible! I have begun to buy the footwear of my dreams. No, I am not walking on shoes the height of Tina T’s from Christian Louboutin but I am working on it and can now manage 3 inches!

A late starter

I am an opsimath, just like the Queen in Alan Bennett’s The Uncommon Reader. Instead of just dreaming I am now wearing, although I still get more pleasure walking around admiring the arty shoes in a smart department store than I would ever get from actually wearing those enormous heels!

Only a late starter in wearing, not in collecting. I have a collection of shoes that I don’t actually wear. Some don’t even fit me. I have them for art projects, as motivation, encouragement for students to design their own crazy, sensible or fashion shoes and great fun is had by all.

So what about me as a conductor, what do I wear?

As I am not able to wear Tina's’s glittery red high heels while walking up and down the stairs or in and out of a wooden ladder, I have had to consider something else.

Initially I wore trainers, always white and light-weight. I had worn these at the special school where I worked at in England and continued to do so during my training at the Petö Institute in Budapest. These trainers were good but light-weight trainers are often also narrower than others and because of this, added to the fact that the soles were very flat, my feet began to hurt after wearing them for hours on end. I decided to try out Birkenstocks, the sandals with a moulded foot bed. If you are lucky and this foot bed suits your foot they can be very comfortable but if, like me, you are not then gradually the aches and pains begin again. At one point I had the Birkenstock foot beds replaced by one moulded to my own foot but I didn’t wear them for long.

I decided to change back to closed shoes with laces, for the warmth and the increased stability. I didn’t feel secure enough in slip on sandals, especially when working with adult clients when they needed a lot of physical support. I needed to have my feet firmly fixed to the ground. I have had occasions when I have left a sandal one step behind me while facilitating someone walking through a ladder.

The floors are also cold, in most centres lino-covered concrete is the norm, I have yet to experience under-floor heating, now that would be just perfect! Until then closed shoes with thick socks are the go, resulting in warmer feet.

For many years I have worn orthopaedic shoes. They are white to match my clothes, have hundreds of little holes like my old Clark’s sandals to let in the air and let my feet breathe, and they have a foot bed made for me by the same man who makes the children’s shoes. He makes them for all the conductors at the centre where I work and we no longer complain of aching feet!

So for work I stick to the sensible shoes, like those that I have for cycling and walking. The less sensible, and maybe one day even Tina’s stilettos, will have to remain in the cupboard for the theatre visit!

What do others wear, and why?

I have asked several colleagues about the shoes that they wear for work. Some don’t think much about it at all, they just wear slip-on sandals as that is what most conductors wear.

Others do consider it and they usually say that they wear slip-ons because they like to be able to take them off easily My question is “What for?”

I always fear that the answer may be “So that I can use my foot to facilitate”, which I hate to say I have often seen. I don’t of course mean by this a shoed foot being placed between a children’s feet to prevent them tripping over their own feet. I mean using a bare or socked foot to hold a limb in position, as a third hand. This makes me cringe just thinking about it, and I imagine how I might feel to be on the receiving end of this. When I was undergoing physiotherapy after breaking my arm, the physical closeness of the stranger, the therapist, to my own body was difficult enough to deal with, whatever would I have felt like if she had begun to use her feet.

Is a foot a third hand? In my opinion definitely not.

Where is the boundary?

Can one use a shoed foot when facilitating standing or walking, can one do the same with bare feet? To seperate a child’s feet with your own foot while walking is just about acceptable if the conductor can keep a firm footing. Anything that endangers a child 's safety must be left well alone. Doing this with bare feet is probably not advisable, as the conductor will certainly not have a firm footing. In standing programmes it is not necessary to use a foot, as there are always plenty of boxes available for the purpose.

Can one use a bare foot to facilitate other parts of the body? This is the worst thing that I can imagine, absolute taboo, but it is something which I have observed many times in many different places. I can only assume that it is for doing this that many conductors want to wear slip on (or off) shoes.

Several conductors say that a mule-type trainer that is closed at the front gives support but is also easily slipped off. One colleague says that she wears her mules for this reason as she needs to be able to take hers off so as not to walk with shoes on the carpet when she works with children on the floor.

I walk on the carpet in my shoes. They are clean, as I never go outside in them. No one walks into the room with outdoor shoes on. My feet stay warm and I tread securely.

One colleague in Norway has found an excellent solution, tough trekking sandals with three straps to adjust and hold the foot securely, and they are always on her feet. A present from her Mum: strange isn’t it how mums so often know what’s best!

kismama cipö

In Budapest the footwear was varied, although when I was there between 1989 and 1993 there were still many conductors wearing kismama cipö. Now it would be impossible to slip these off quickly with their many rows of laces, sometimes all the way up to the calf. They are a light- weight canvas shoe or boot offering support and were worn in those days by most women who spent a lot of time on their feet. In many places they are still worn today, I saw them for example at Easter 2008 in the lifts at the Gellert Hotel thermal baths, on the feet of the "lift néni" (the lady in charge of the lift).

Just a very short story about wearing high heels

I had a stroke client for many years who had aphasia, neglect syndrome, no speech and many other associated problems, but was physically very active. I could spend a whole session with her showing her how to walk with her heel touching the ground first and then rolling on to the ball of her foot. This was a movement that was physically possible for her but as soon as I was no longer verbally guiding her movements she would go back to taking steps by putting her toes on the floor first. She didn’t do this just with her right foot, she did it with both.

I was perplexed, but not so another female client in the group who, prior to suffering a stroke, had been a real shoe-lover and had worn the highest heels imaginable. It was she who thought to ask the toe-pointing client whether she had worn stilettos prior to the stroke. Delighted to be communicating on this level the client was all smiles and nods.

Knowing the reason for this strange way of walking while wearing flat orthopaedic shoes did not solve the problem but it did make it less frustrating and often made us all laugh.

The shoes our clients wear, though, now that’s another posting.

Information, please

Despite a little enquiry I still don’t really know why conductors feel the need to take off their shoes. Maybe someone out there can enlighten me.

Notes

Hamley’s Toy Shop -

http://www.myhamleys.com/experience/history.html

St. Crispin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crispin
http://www.crispinsshoes.com/store/product/41661/MQ-PUENTE-BLK-SDE--B-11/

Tina's red soled shoes - by Christian Louboutin,

http://www.christianlouboutin.fr/

opsimath - opsimath (OP-si-math) noun, one who begins learning late in life. [From Greek opsi- (late) + math (learning).]

The Uncommon Reader

Alan Bennett, ISBN 10: 0-374-28096-7

Birkenstocks

http://www.birkenstock.co.uk/index.php?m=catalogue&a=vw_prod&wprid=1

Kismama cipö

http://kismamacipo.freeweb.hu/

Also see notes to a previous blog posting

"up the disco" and "up the city"

http://konduktorin.blogspot.com/2009/02/glorious-britain.html

More on summer camps

Tapestry design, from a 1977 sketchbook by Susie Mallett

A new discovery

I discovered the following report on an interesting blog, one that surprisingly doesn’t appear to have the following as most other American blogs, written by parents of disabled children, have, at least the number of people commenting is lower than seen on other such blogs It is called Accessibility Answers:

http://accessibilityanswers.blogspot.com/

The blog, describes itself as a “blog about children and adults with disabilities, that provides access to information and resources to help them lead productive, happy and independent lives.”

I like the form that the blog takes mainly because while reading it links are highlighted to things that I may want to learn more about, just like in Wikipedia. This makes gathering information easy and less time consuming. I shall have to find out whether I too can do this on Blogger. While reading and linking I came across the following paragraph (Andrew is the son of Kris Burbank who writes the blog):

"--Next we tried what Andrew calls "Cerebral Palsy Camp." It was a local conductive education camp that employed two Hungarian therapists for an all-day, intensive therapy program that lasted six weeks. Six hours of rigorous treatment, followed by two hours of computers and swimming at a nearby CP Center. One of the therapists actually lived with our family for two weeks and my parents visited her in Hungary. (Are you seeing a trend here??!) She was lovely, but Andrew hated it! He cried everyday and just seemed overwhelmed by all the physical demands. They tried to make it social and fun, but it was just really hard for him. We continued some of the conductive ed treatment over the next two years after school; however, we decided Andrew needed more fun and less work during our relatively short summer (10 weeks)."

As regular readers may know I have a bit of a problem with some of these summer camps. Sometimes summer camps are the only possibility for children to take part in conductive groups, so the children and adult users and their carers are expecting the best service possible, and so they should.

It is because I have discovered that often there is a lack of follow up and support for families after such camps that I have offered my services over the Internet to anyone interested, (see “Doing a Dina” in the right-hand side-bar).

Deconstructing Andrew's camp

The sentence “my parents visited her in Hungary” could indicate that this conductor was not from the USA and therefore possibly not able to offer follow-up and house visits necessary after Andrew's camp.

I have picked out a few other words and phrases from the above paragraph that sparked a reaction in me. Maybe some of you reading this will record your own reactions to Kris's remarks and to my own.

“Six hours of rigorous treatment, followed by two hours of computers and swimming”. Did these two conductors do all of this? They also had to do their preparation, which means at least one extra hour each day even with a group of only six children and brings us up to 9 hours. Then there is the writing of programmes, aims and reports, which adds at least another hour. which brings us up to ten hours a day. If these two were doing all of this it is time here for a something on working hours for conductors. I will leave my comment on the word "treatment" until further on in my posting.

Why do conductors work five-hour shifts in the groups at the Petö Institute, Budapest? Conductors' working hours have to be discussed

So they can offer the same high standard of work to their clients each and every day, and not get burnt out like many conductors now do who are working in a different rhythm in other countries.

So they can do their preparaton and paperwork, and still not have a ten-hour day. Remember in the Petö institute there are a lot of conductors working in each group, so the preparation for the programme of each day is shared, and not all done by two people as in this summer camp.

Some colleagues of mine in Germany work eight hours a day "hands on" with the children and then have to find time for the paper-work, preparation and furniture moving.

In Norway I was working for ten hours on many days, sometimes more to get the work done. I was in the group for six hours with the children, I was preparing the room and the daily programme with my colleague for one to two hours every day, I was preparing material for art projects, and then writing programmes and reports for several hours after this.

I work this intensely when it is a three-week block, when I am away from home and therefore have no other commitments, and when I have a week-off afterwards to recover. I am not saying that this is OK. I couldn’t work at this pace for the whole year (with holidays), which some, many, conductors are expected to do. Maybe it is time that some centres take another look towards the Petö Institute which was their supposed inspiration to set up a centre in the first place, and ask themselves why some of their practice is how it is.

Burnt-out conductors are one reason why there is such a high rate of turnover of conductors in centres around the world. This high turnover brings with it instability and may hinder the development of the centre and its long term plans.

Back to Andrew’s experiences at his “cerebral palsy camp”

“...overwhelmed by all the physical demands” What did Dr Hári continuously drum into us? She always stressed that children are not inactive because they are tired but because they are not being motivated to be active. I remember her telling me in a private conversation that children will forget that they felt tired as soon as their interest is fired up, so much so that they cannot resist taking part. I know from my experience that this is true.

In Norway the children were sometimes tired. We, the conductors, could see it. The programme would be adjusted accordingly and because of this the children were always queuing at the door for the next round of fun.

In my adults groups it is so important that I don’t exhaust my clients with a programme that is not balanced. Conductors need to be observing continuously, watching each individual, checking that there is no one in the group “overwhelmed” by tiredness.

In all groups it is so important to be continuously changing the type of activity, to be observing, and to have the ability to be spontaneous. To be motivating and, above all, not trying “to make it social and fun” but actually having fun, every minute of every day.

“We continued some of the conductive ed treatment over the next two years after school; however, we decided Andrew needed more fun and less work during our relatively short summer (10 weeks).”

Does this not perhaps indicate that it is high time for conductive summer camps to change their format?

Camps for living

In Nürnberg we started to call our camps “überlebungs” camps. I was never sure whether this was a word that we conductors had invented or whether it actually is in the German dictionary. It is real, though, and and another way of puting it is über alle berge, which translates into English as "over all mountains".

We wanted to indicate that the camps are to do with living, stepping beyond the particular problems that confront the children in all situations, while showering, dressing, making breakfast. Yes, maybe therre's a little bit of '1, 2, 3, 4, 5...' but after this it is off to the zoo, or to the museum, out for a bike-ride, out to the disco, to the art club, etc., etc, until time to make dinner, eat, talk, undress and sleep.

These camps are about living and full of conductive upbringing Yes the children are tired at the end of the day but not "overwhelmed" by it. They are tired because of living their day to the full. They go to sleep anticipating more of the same again tomorrow, looking forward to an active life.

What is happening in summer camps?

If camps were to follow a different format, showing the families how to live conductively, then the sentence that includes the phrases “conductive ed treatment” and “more fun and less work” is no longer applicable. Families can learn how to live conductively, and not how to "treat" their child after school is out.

So, another question that springs to mind here is "How much parental involvement is there in many summer camps?"

Comments on this are very welcome, especially if there are people out there offering different forms of conductive summer camps, like for example the one run by Fortchritt Verein Starnberg that has offered camps for disabled children along with their siblings, and sometimes for the whole family. I have heard they actually do a bit of “1, 2, 3, 4, 5... ” as well, on a beach somewhere! In my opinion that can't be anything but fun!

Notes

Accessibility Answers

http://accessibilityanswers.blogspot.com/

Fortschritt Verein Steinberg
http://www.fortschritt-starnberg,de/

Glorious Britain

The Best of British!

My Dad

Cod and chips, Sherringham, 31st January 2009

The Poppy Line

Cromer Pier with theatre

Cromer Beach

Tin toys, Sherringham

Part II "The Best of British"

“... I simply remember my favourite things and then I don’t feel so sad”.

Whiskers on kittens, warm woollen mittens and copper kettles are not on my list of favourite things, but I am quite partial to brown-paper packages tied up with string and a snow flake or two.

My sister had other favourite things of mine in mind as she planned our last family outing, on my last day in England. She wanted to give me a taste of the “Best of British” before I left, but before we set off for the North Norfolk coast we came face to face with some of Britain’s worst.

Is this Miami Vice?

Ram-raiding and attempted break-ins to village stores. One of my relatives was on the receiving end of both of these in the space or fours weeks, one being this very morning.

They are happening in Norfolk at an increasing rate, several every weekend. They are disheartening, inconvenient, frightening and financially crippling for the shop owners, those people who are running “open all hours” stores, trying so hard to give a much-needed service to the villagers.

I can see the sea

The day was not all gloom and doom, and later than planned we carried on with our journey to the coast. As always in my family it was a race to see who spotted the sea first. On favourite routes to the east of the county we all know exactly where we will get that first glimpse of water across the flat expanse of corn fields, and the race to sing “I can see the sea”, probably a song created by my Mum, begins.

We were however in North Norfolk, that just caught the edge of the ice age resulting in rolling hills. Not real hills, as in Wales or on the Downs on the south coast, but to those born in the fens these are almost mountains! Here it is much more of a race to catch a glimpse of the wintery green/grey sea as it disappears behind a hummock as quickly as it was spotted.

Frying tonight!

Sis was first this time to see the sea in the distance, at Sheringham, our destination, so she got to sing our song. Our first stop was at the red chip van, for a piping hot fish-and-chip lunch. It was too cold to eat this on the sea-front as we usually do, using the sea wall as a table and with the air adding extra salt. Despite this they were still delicious, though once again we felt the influence of the crunch as we were not able to get a cup of tea to wash it all down.

The tea-van has not been visiting the market place for several weeks now as business has been so poor.

Restored with love

Sheringham is the home of the Poppy Line Railway which journeys between Sherringham and Holt. With its very British railway station and collection of trains, all lovingly restored by volunteers, fir this railway family this a real trip down memory lane.

My father, a retired engine-driver (for my American readers, that's an "engineer"), drove on the footplate of a steam engine on the open day here last September. He enjoyed it tremendously but he refused to shovel the coal and had no wish at all to come out of retirement! Retired railwaymen are rarely sentimental over the days of steam. My dad remembers it as very hard and dirty work, and from what I remember from my childhood it was not terribly well paid..

Is life getting “Tuff” here too?

Sheringham High Street was buzzing with life, in comparison to the city's shopping malls I had been to. Only one shop was boarded up, that being Stead and Simpson where we used to by our “Tuff” school shoes. All the privately owned smaller shops were still open, admittedly many still with sales on, but still open.

The hardware shop, so typical and found in most villages in Norfolk, was overflowing with every essential household item, the walls outside decorated like Christmas trees, with door mats, wind chimes, brushes, pots, pans and squirrel-proof bird feeders adorning them. You could buy tin- openers, sandpaper and even single nails and screws. We were all drooling over this shop but when we got to the next one it was even better. It was full of the most amazing junk and nostalgia that one could imagine, including reproduction childhood games and a window full of tinplate toys. I resisted temptation over the tinplate, but only because most of the best pieces are all ready in my collection.

Can this day get any better?

Of course it can, I still had to step on to the beach and smell the sea. It was time to get back in the car to travel parallel to the coast, with just a corn field between us and the crumbling cliff edge, in the direction of Cromer, home to the famous Cromer crabs, Cromer lifeboat and Cromer Pier

"Disappearing Britain", that is a story in itself. Here on the Norfolk coast there is a lot of evidence of land being swallowed by the sea at an alarming rate. One of our favourite holiday spots, Happisburgh, crumbles away by several yards each winter. Our favourite tea shop is now closed and on our last visit its back garden was no longer open to customers: it was in fact several feet below, on the beach at the foot of the cliffs !

The show at the end of the Pier, and the lifeboat house

Back to Cromer and its lovely p

Pier, my absolute favourite in the region, beautifully restored with its gorgeous Pavilion Theatre. It was really much too col to take a walk to the end. I did though brave the beach where I was nearly blown away while photographing the rock pools and the wooden sea defences, and searching for a Cromer crab!

When one grows up beside the seaside the lifeboats have a very special meaning. We knew how powerful the seas are and how suddenly anyone out on them can get into difficulties. As a child I would watch wide-eyed when the flares went up, and what seemed like the most enormous men in the world men, would come running from all directions in the village. The boat would be launched and the waiting would begin for its safe return.

Cromer’s lifeboat has a long history and has had some famous skippers, Henry Blogg amongst them. As a child a visit to the lifeboat on open days was always a treat, to be able to walk through the lifeboat shed, to actually talk to the huge lifeboat men was always something rather special.

On this trip to Cromer it really was too cold to wander around and see the sights, I have never been as cold on a beach in my life as I was that day as I ran along the hard sand from one groin to the next with the wind whistling behind me. I could hardly keep on my feet so I hastened to collect my token hole with a stone round it and I climbed up into the shelter of the cliffside stairway and back to the car.

That really was the "best of British", kept till last. A brazing walk on a Norfolk beach, something which won’t disappear and it doesn’t cost a penny. Yet!.

Notes

“...I simply remember my favourite things and then I don’t feel so sad”

Sound of Music

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_of_Music
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Favorite_Things_(song)

Best of British

http://www.bestofbritishmag.co.uk/

Miami Vice

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Vice

The Ice age -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/norfolk/content/articles/2005/06/21/coast05_iceage_feature.shtml

Sheringham

http://norfolkcoast.co.uk/location_norfolk/vp_sheringham.htm

Stead and Simpson

http://www.steadandsimpson.com/

The Poppy Line

http://www.nnrailway.co.uk/

Cromer Lifeboat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromer_lifeboat_station
http://www.rnli.org.uk/rnli_near_you/east/stations/CromerNorfolk/history

Cromer Pier and Pavillion Theatre

http://www.cromer-pier.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavilion_Theatre,_Cromer_Pier

Cromer crabs -

http://www.cromeronline.co.uk/pages/crab.html
http://www.shellfish.org.uk/assets/Images/02_05.pdf

Happisburgh

http://www.happisburgh.org.uk/

Who needs boxes?

Petö was a person

I am back working with the little ones who have just had three more intensive blocks with us before they all head off to start school in the Autumn of this year. All of them have been with us since the parent-and- child group and are all active “Petö” children, as they call themselves.

Today we asked these children what Petö meant and one of them confidently replied “It is the work I do”. When my colleague went on to tell them about Dr. András Petö they were astounded to hear that Petö was in fact a person and that the name of their “work” is Konduktive Förderung.

Petö is work

I actually found it really refreshing to hear a child say that he was at work. Most of them think they are being sent to "therapy", as that is how their parents and nursery-school teachers describe it to them. As I have said before, I am also happy to hear Petö used to describe the work rather than "KF" (short for Konduktive Förderung).

I am working in this group with a very creative conductor, She is especially so when it comes to story-telling and creating situations in which the children become active, have a lot of fun and can be as independent as possible. She appears at just the right moment with plastic rings, boxes, sticks, anything that is hand really that can assist in making all our activities possible.

Work is fun

During the last block with these same children I was taking a “train” loaded with children from the wall bars to the table, all alone, one pushing me, one walking in front of me, while I was pushing a chair with two children sitting on it. This was quite a feat and my colleague ingeniously joined together the two children who were sitting chair with plastic rings around their shoulders, to prevent them sliding off! Yes we had quite a lot of fun again!

Today I had my creative colleague at my side again, once more plastic rings were doing the job to make sure that one little boy could sit up and take part actively in putting on his shoes without falling over (see first photo).

Shoes

On another occasion (second photo) my colleague and I were not quick enough fetching boxes to put under the children’s feet so that they reached the ground. One little athetoid girl solved the problem for herself, much faster than we did. She wobbled around on her stool using her feet to bring a stray pair of sandals near enough to slip her feet inside. She was just having a bit of fun, and I bet she wished that they were high heels, but they just happened to be exactly the height that she needed to sit more securely while we played games with our arms, hands and feet.

The shoes were exactly the right height We probably didn’t have a box that size, sometimes children do know best , but shouldn't those shoes not have been on someone else’s feet?

Well that’s another story, conductors and their feet, another posting coming soon!

Back to the Fatal!

Baby elephant, 1977, by Susie Mallett

Chai, 4th February 2009

Back to the present!

I’m back home. I was straight back at work just eight hours after landing so last night seemed to be the right time to get back out in the neighbourhood too. Time to stop unpacking, washing and ironing, blogging and preparing, and time to walk round the corner for a cup of something and some afters.

So with my notebook in one hand, and the newest Time magazine and some conductive reading in the other, I made my way to the Caffé Fatal for Quarkklößchen mit Zwetcshen Kompott (stewed plums with a kind of semolina topping) and Chai (spicey) tea.

Before I went out I had already decided that the elephant drawing that I had found in an old sketchbook was going to head this posting, so I was not in the least bit surprised to find another one on my tea cup.

Up in smoke

What I was surprised to see was the notice on the door. The Caffé Fatal had decided to allow smoking after 22.00 hours. As a friend of mine says, despite the smoking ban working so well since it was implemented, even in Bavaria where they were having great difficulties deciding what to do when there is a beer festival in a tent, some people just can't let it stand, finding all kinds of ways round it.

The note on the café door says that anyone wanting to join the “After-ten club” must sign the list. Yes this is Germany, you must officially join a club to be able join the smokers. I am not quite sure how this works but I have heard of other bars and cafés bending the law in this way.

I am a very disappointed, as having found such a wonderful local I have enjoyed going there late in the evenings after finishing my work. Now I will have to take a break earlier if I want to enjoy relatively clear air, although the Cafe already smells different even at eight o'clock in the evening, as the smoke lingers from the night before.

It may be time to widen my horizons and check out the next street! I am actually spoilt for choice in this area of the city but the Fatal is near and nice.

Notes

Conductive reading -

Fachausschuss Konduktive Förderung (Hrsg.) Der Verlag selbstbestimmtes Leben, Eigenverlag des Bundesverband für Körper- und mehrfachbehinderte Menschen e.V., Dusseldorf http://www.bvkm.de/

Glorious Britain

" My Dad's best Christmas card" by Eddy C., my mum's best school friend, 2008

Part I - The green and present land

I had been in England for but a few hours.

Despite still being very British after living "abroad" for 18 years I found myself asking a friend if I was perhaps getting just a little bit German, or at the very least getting used to German ways. Or could it be that I am getting out of touch with the changing British ways! Are the British no longer as British as I am!

I landed in England on a very wet Monday morning, I was incredibly tired, having travelled all through the night from the Tina Turner concert in Cologne, but still in a very jolly mood. I would have loved to have been sleeping on that bus to Norwich which I saw drawing away later than scheduled, disappearing into the distance as I emerged from the airport, but instead I had, I thought, a ninety-minute wait for the next one.

Waiting for trains, boats, planes, buses or trams is never a problem for me. I always have my sketch book in my pocket and I really enjoy "people-watching/sketching" over a cup of coffee. And, as I was now in the UK, I could even risk drinking a cup of tea. Take-away tea really should be avoided in most other countries.

My journey to the Tina Turner concert in Cologne, by train from southern to northern Germany, had been thwarted by bad weather (snow and a tempeature of minus 10-20°C) that had resulted in late and broken-down trains. I had still, however, arrived at my destination only one hour later than planned. Despite having to travel on four trains instead of two, at each station the connecting train was waiting on the neighbouring platform. I was once again impressed by the efficiency of DB, the Germany Railways network.

On returning to the bus station at the airport in UK, after a breakfast with lots of tea and some sketching, I was greeted by a humorous but cynical National Express inspector announcing "It is raining and it is Monday morning, which means chaos on the M25 and everything is late". Not just minutes late but up to two hours! He went on to explain to us would-be travellers that Britain’s drivers and its roads are unable to cope with wet Monday mornings.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, it was raining quite heavily but it was only water, not ice or 30 centimetres of snow. It is no wonder that the country comes to a total standstill when that water turns to snow, as it did just two weeks later minutes after my lucky escape.

My bus to Norwich did eventually arrive, everyone was friendly and helpful and I got delivered to my family safe and sound, but I am never-the-less still wide eyed and opened mouthed from discovering that a drop of water causes havoc on "our" roads. What I find even more surprising is that this state of affairs is accepted with no more annoyance than a cynical smile or a raised eyebrow.

What has been happening in Britain?

I was to discover more.

More, more...

I travelled "up to Brum" on British Rail, or whatever it is now called, National Express East Anglia, Cross Country or First Capital Connect, all part of "the National Rail portal to UK travel".
Norwich to Birmingham has no longer got a direct rail link so it is a risky cross-country journey. It is advisable whenever possible to change trains at Peterborough, and not at Ely, to avoid being blown away past the sheep grazing outside Ely Cathedral and straight out over the Fens. It is in Ely that one really gets to know just how lazy our east wind is, taking no time to blow round people but cutting straight through the body.

I was lucky on this trip to arrive in Birmingham dead on time, to enjoy some hours at the National Institute for Conductive Education library, picking Gill Maguire’s brains and bookshelves. Yet I was far less impressed with the railway's services as I am by Deutsche Bahn. When I had booked my ticket to Birmingham I asked for a printout of my journey and a few choices for the return journey, as I had no Internet to use. I was handed a pocket timetable which I later discovered only covered half my journey so I still needed to make a phone call to get the information that I needed. Again I was aware of how I am becoming very used to German efficiency, and beginning to expect it everywhere!

On the return journey I again arrived at my destination exactly on time but the "more-than-my job’s-worth" conductor on the train made me feel embarrassed to be British. He had no idea how best to advice a family who had missed their stop. He could not tell them how to continue their journey most efficiently and offered them three or four different prices for their onward ticket. He continually threatened to throw them all off at the next stop, and he behaved as if they had purposefully not got off the train! It was dreadful, actually a disgraceful way to behave towards customers who pay a lot of money for a service which is not always the best! Oh yes, they were Indian.

Luckily there were enough people on the train to ensure that these passengers could carry on with their journey, but there were a lot of wasted minutes which could have meant missed connections and a lot of angry passengers. Mr Jobsworth was totally oblivious to the chaos he was causing and the unfairness of his behaviour, his face was not pink, but many others were, mine included, in embarrassment.

Am I really getting too used to German ways and standards of service, or am I just out of touch with the changing Britain and Britons. Are the Brits really becoming just too accepting of the increasingly inadequate services tht they receive?

Over the past two weeks I have seen and heard more to shock me. I was last here in August 2008, since when the big city and small town centres have a completely changed appearance: they are no longer bustling. Something similar happened more than ten years ago but then it was small businesses that struggled, eventually closing their doors and boarding up their windows. Now I am shocked to see that it is the big high street names that are disappearing. Perhaps it is not surprising that shops selling luxury goods like The Pier that have succumbed in this crunching time, but Woolworth? Stead and Simpson?

Crunch!

Of course I had read about Woolworth’s closure, both in the newspaper and in Andrew Sutton’s blog, but to see it first-hand with my own eyes, huge Big W stores shut, it is hard to believe and it makes me ore than a little sad. Woolworth was a part of my childhood.

My mother shopped there, buying us jigsaws galore and the cosy Ladybird clothes. My sister loved the jigsaws and I loved the clothes. The Ladybird T-shirts and pullovers had the most amazingly soft fluffy inner side, which I can still visualise and feel next to my skin.

Woolworth is where my sister and I, with our school friend in tow, headed for on our first solo excursions "up the city", on our first adventures without an adult escort.

First we headed for the broken-biscuits counter for a pound of cream biscuits for the parrot. He loved custard creams best and he would flick the cream all over the place.

Then it was over to the Miner’s make-up counter where my sister and her friend spent their precious sixpences, while I simply drooled over the lovely lipstick colours and sparkly eye- shadows. (though my pocket-money remained safely in its place, in my pocket, to be spent later on paints).

Woolworth, one of the cheapest places to shop in is no more. How long before other established big names disappear from our lives and the high streets. Who would have imagined a town without Woolies? Tryin to imagine one with no Sainsburys, no Tescos, no Marks and Spencer and no WH Smiths?

This crunch really wasn’t a reality for me before this trip to UK. I tried to get on with life and ignore it. Germany has been late in accepting its existence, though I had been noticing the financial downwards trend because of several cancellations over the past few months, something that I had rarely experienced before in 15 years of conducting. When I had left Germany two weeks ago, however, there was still no evidence on the high street, shops were still open and just as full to overflowing as ever.

In Britain the crunch could not be missed. It leds every national newspaper and every television and radio station was full of it. Everyone was talking about it. In the stores there was 70% off everything, the sales continuing long after the traditional January sales would normally have come to an end. I even saw an insurance company having a sale, now that must be a first.

My trip was not all gloom and doom. The Best of British is still out there to be enjoyed. There would be piers, fish and chips, steam trains and more, to be shared with you in my next posting.

Notes

Deutsche Bahn

http://www.bahn.de/international/view/en/index.shtml

National Rail

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rail
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/

"Up to Brum" Travel to Birmingham, "up to" is a very Norfolk way of saying "to" somewhere. We go "up the city" (to the city, to shop), "up the Smoke" (to London) and "up the Samson" (to the disco, the Samson and Hercules, a ballroom since 1930).

http://www.francisfrith.com/search/england/norfolk/norwich/photos/norwich_81810.htm

Woolworths

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/11/woolworths-bankrupt

Miner’s make

http://www.miners.co.uk/

Andrew Sutton’s blog on sale of Woolies

http://www.conductive-world.info/2008/11/normal-services-will-be-resumed.html

Best of British - my favourite magazine

http://www.bestofbritishmag.co.uk/

Rediscovering my passion for trees

Trees in Norfolk, by Susie Mallett, 1977

As readers will by now have realised the slight lull in blog-writing recently has been due to a visit to my family and my homeland.

This was my first mid-winter visit for many years and the first time for even longer that I have seen the flatness of Norfolk covered with an icing sugar topping of snow.

England was different in other ways too: this will be the topic of my next posting, with both the best of British and the worst.

Reminded and remembering

I spent my last evening on British soil tucked up in bed in a cold, three-hundred-year-old house, with two hot-water bottles and a pile of books.

Not just any old books, these were something special, old sketch books that I had dug out of a damp corner, dating back as far as 1975 when I first began to keep a book and a pencil in my pocket.

I was at art school from 1975 –1979 , four whole years drawing and painting all day, every day. What bliss. Never again to be repeated. I enjoyed every single minute of it. I even put up with having to do the very small dissertation and the half-a-dozen essays necessary to receive an honours bachelor's degree.

I spent all these precious years learning to draw, investigating techniques that today come so naturally to me. My friend Nick (see my "Oscar" acceptance speech posting) taught me to draw, although he will insist that he just drew it out of me. He tells me that because the interest and talent were there to be encouraged, the rest was easy.

I continue learning to this day but these old sketch books are full of evidence of how I spent every minute of every day doing my first-ever investigations into light and shade, tone and texture. Even when I was out picking blackberries with friends, or travelling around Norfolk in the car with my Mum, I always had a sketch-book and I now realise that I wrote notes to describe everything that I saw, the colours, the textures and even my emotional reactions to a scene.

I wrote notes describing my ideas and design developments, and even then I was writing about my soul. I described how I was expressing myself through pictures in a way that I found difficult to do with the spoken word.

A lucky discovery! I now have enough photographs from these “Susie Mallett archives" to fill my blog for several years and I can share some of my surprise discoveries.

Words and pictures

I painted from nature, landscapes and sometimes townscapes, I loved to draw trees, I suppose I can say that I was and still am fascinated by them, passionate about them. Their spiralling trunks and branches, their bark patterns and their overpowering greatness were a never-ending source of inspiration and awe. I wrote my dissertation on the wind something else that fascinates me, with a power even greater than that of a tree, able to fell a tree in the blink of an eye.

All of this I read about in these “ancient” sketch books. The writings I have no recollection of, and I read the words as if someone else had written them. The painting and drawings that accompany these I remember as if I had done them yesterday, every stroke of the brush and every mark made by a pencil.

Changing

As I was drafting this posting on the bus on my way to the airport I looked out of the window at the passing landscape and made a few marks in my note book. I began to think about how I look at things, about how I described this in my sketch books all those years ago, and how I do it automatically these days. I contemplated how I make quick observations just as I do in my conductive work, and how I can translate these into pencil marks and perhaps have enough stored information to elaborate on it later. I still look at landscapes as I did then, like a sheet of music, the receding lines of the fields being the staves and the black trunks of the trees with their dark clumps of leaves and needles, the notes dotted on them. The landscape or a townscape is music in my ears inspiring me to put pencil or paint to paper.

I have carried a book and a pencil in my pocket since 1975. Once this would have been full of pictures, with a few words, but for over a year now, since just before I started my blog in fact, this has changed, there are now more words than pictures.

It was so interesting to see where my ideas and interest in shape, form and colour began and follow its progress through the years through these sketch books, right up to the present day.

PS

As I finished writing this in the plane (Air Berlin), out of the corner of my eye I could see Mr Bean on the television screen. Mr Bean is one of Britain’s “greatest” exports to Germany. He is on a German television channel somewhere all the time, the Germans just love him. On this clip as I write he is in an art room, what a coincidence, and he is learning to draw!

“British humour”, the Germans love it, they import a lot of it, especially anything with Rowan Atkinson in it. The children I work with often comment on my Mr Bean Englishness when I ask them to put their socks in their shoes so that we don’t get them mixed up. Apparently only I and Mr Bean do this! As long as this is the only similarity that I share with him I don’t mind, I wouldn’t like to think that I run around with my head stuffed inside a turkey!

Notes

Mr Bean and the turkey

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

My "Oscar" acceptance speech

http://konduktorin.blogspot.com/2008/12/all-i-want-for-christmas_08.html

The not-so-quick quick brown fox

Norfolk, January 26th 2009

I have been in the green and pleasant land, where it was cold, damp and on the very last day also snowy. Not a lot of green to be seen, the sheep in the field difficult to see, their long, winter- yellowing fleeces matching exactly the straggly grass.

On the first and only warmer sunny day of my visit I worked with my Dad in the garden, which is the nicest place for us to be together, busy and feeling near to my mum.

Our first job was rather unusual: we had to bury a fox that lay with it long, fluffy brush stretched out behind him at the end of a row of leeks. I spotted him, as I had gone to dig up the leeks for our lunchtime soup!

It is always sad to see dead animals, especially when they have suffered as this one had. It had been hit on the road and struggled over high walls into the safety of our garden. On the other hand, it is always a wonderful opportunity to get such a close-up view of nature, which is usually denied us. This fox was small and neat and trim, and such a beautiful colour, many shades of rusty brown and sandy beiges. He had extremely long incisor teeth. and was unfortunately not as quick and sly as they are usually renowned for being, as a car got him on the busy main road.

My job in the garden was to clear the broken flower stems and clear a few of the dead leaves away so we could enjoy the snowdrops that were slowly appearing. Luckily I sensed that it may just be a bit too early for this and left just enough debris to protect them under the snow that arrived in Norfolk shortly before I left on Sunday.

The sleeping frog

My dad had written himself a note of things to show me in the garden and at the bottom it said 'f'rog'. I have been a frog fan since childhood, always finding one to play with, and this wasn’t the first time that my Dad had something new and froggy to show me.

But this was a first! The second picture above shows the tiniest, best-camouflaged hibernating frog one can imagine. Dad had discovered it under a bag of compost that he had wanted to use. Needless to say the compost remains in its place until the spring has sprung, and the frog with it.

As the sun went down the cold dampness returned and we went inside to enjoy the warmth of our home-grown leek-and-potato soup.

Notes

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog – this is a pangram using all the letters of the alphabet. It is a sentence used to test typewriter and computer keyboards since the late 1880s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_quick_brown_fox_jumps_over_the_lazy_dog
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangram

Quick - in English the word quick not only means fast, it also means alive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quick_and_the_Dead

Brush - a fox's tail, hence Brazil Brush one of my favourite children's TV programmes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_Brush

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipg_7ly8HoM&feature=related

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nixon

I escaped England…

Cousin Mary and her Yamaha, last year

Koala and Homestead, Kalgoorlie, 1987, by Mary K. in Adelaide

… with just hours to spare before the snow came down, closing the airport for several hours.

Apart from during my recent damp visit to England I have seen nothing but snow for months, in Germany and in Norway, and sometimes it has been terribly cold (down to minus 20). Oh how at times I have longed for some warmth.

I have just received the following long email from my cousin Mary in Australia.

Well hello everyone.

The heat has been tremendous over the past week. Constantly up in the 40C's. That's way past the 100F mark. Suffice to say Australia is struggling. Not just us in Adelaide but in Melbourne as well where they are dealing with terrible bushfires.

Of course, north of Adelaide where Greg and I live, it is always a couple of degrees hotter. So when they say it reached 44°C in Adelaide, it was 47 in Roseworthy, just 4 kilometres up the road from us. That extra 3 degrees sounds like nothing on paper, but believe me, it turns the earth into a scorching ball to live on. And I know that 47 degrees is measured in the shade!

The garden has been punished. Leaves are burnt, plants are wilting, fruit dropped, chickens panting, ground rock hard. Rabbits invading for food. Horses next door pushing over barriers to get at mulch and the chickens breaking through barriers to dig holes next to the irrigation systems in order to lie in damp dirt.

I'm struggling to save the garden but its taken its toll. I've made some makeshift shade barriers for the silverbeet and strawberries to just stop the leaves getting scorched. And it was hot sweaty work doing that I can tell you - I had my trusty fly net hat on and sunscreen, but the sweat was pouring off me. Rivulets - I could have watered the garden with my sweat!

I finished up work last Thursday for a 4 week break (and Greg). My only saving grace was that I was working in a lovely air conditioned office but when I walked out the front entrance, it was like stepping into a hot furnace.

We had rail lines buckling as much as 58 cm (I have never seen the steel look so much like spaghetti), we have had rolling blackouts with some suburbs out for more than 24 hours - food spoilt, people collapsing and some dying. We've had transformers catch fire because they can't cope with the high demand for electricity to supply houses running air conditioners 24/7.

There's been houses burning down because they are running air conditioners 24/7 and they aren't designed to run that length of time. There's even been an ambulance catch fire in the engine bay! So far, we have not been blacked out, but the electricity company is deliberately doing it to ration the power across the grid.

On my first day off - Friday - we took the car to a window tinting company and had them darkened as legally as possible. Cars without window tint in Australia makes no sense. They should make it a standard feature. But I also had a medical appointment Friday morning and as we had sort of double booked the car, I had to go on the bike. It was already something like 37 degrees at 8:30 a.m. as I rode the bike about half an hour down the freeway to my appointment. It was not so bad but I made the mistake of not sticking on my motorcycle boots which cover my legs all the way up to under my knees. The engine blast scorched my ankles as I was only wearing gym shoes and anklet socks. Yet I always say to Greg "I won't go riding the bike without my bike boots on!" for that very reason - the engine heat. So I must have had my common sense thrown out the window. Never mind - I survived the trip and got home unscathed except a bit hot and sweaty. Straight into the swimming pool.

As you can imagine, the only place is the swimming pool. That has been my refuge. Unfortunately the other effect of this heat is that animals and insects are seeking water. We have had swarms of bees coming around the pot plants, landing in the pool and anywhere where water is exposed, bees congregate in a scary swarming mass. Fortunately when the pool filter is running the bees do not try to land on the moving water, but when it is still in the early morning there are bees drowning and lots of bees to remove before I can get in.

A real nuisance they are. Greg got stung and is not happy because his hand is itchy and looks like a balloon.

Today it is a fraction cooler, by say 6 degrees - at the moment anyway! It's only 8:30 a.m. on Sunday and it is already at least 29C. I think I'll go turn on the pool and climb in it.

Ahhhhh.....lovely! No motorbike riding right now! I've watched cricket, tennis, old movies, videos of motorcycle racing and Star Trek plus the news sixty times over - what else is there to do?

I'm TV'd out!

Love, Mary

I just thought that I would share that on this bitterly cold day in Europe!

I certainly know which extreme I prefer. I find it far easier to put on layers of clothes to brave the cold outside, or to snuggle up under the bed clothes to warm up, than I do to cool off in the extreme heat.

There is a limit to how many layers one can remove, but even a bit of warmth would be welcomed here at the moment. Roll on the spring, which I actually caught a glimpse of on Friday in England where a few snowdrops and crocuses were tentatively poking their heads out in my Dad's garden.

I think I am more a winter, spring and autumn person but not only because of the temperature at these times of the year. As an artist the colours play such an important role and I so very much enjoy in winter how the light plays with the white landscape, producing the most unusual colours.

I have experienced 44°C in the shade in South Australia, in 1988, and there really is not much one can do except hose oneself down or stay indoors, get all the chores done in the night or early hours, and then keep cool!

So to Mary and my family out there in the heat of the Australian day "Take care and keep chilling out".