When I Am Old And Grey (Not That 50 Year Olds Are Old Or Gray!)

When I’m 50, in my ideal world I’ll be in a huge mansion on the outskirts of London, overlooking the countryside. In reality though I know I’d be much happier just in a small house, again in the countryside with old cottage style furnishings, and most definitely a log fire. I will also be using Lemon Jif (Cif) to clean my sinks!

Annie Rook

Hair and Home

Ok so as long as we are all sharing homesick experiences I may as well add another...

On Tuesday I took a break from all of the heavy studying that I had already begun at the start of reading week and went into London to get my hair cut. Now being the poor student that I found a brilliant way to get a great hair cut for really cheap: go to a training academy and have a student cut my hair! I booked my appointment at the vidal sassoon advanced academy, hey it sounds professional enough right? To be honest paying a 5er for a hair cut wasn't going to be bad no matter who was doing it. It was actually pretty cool and I would do it again I think, but you have to let them do pretty much whatever they want and I couldn't really tell whether I liked it or not. I have since then come to accept the cut and I do like it and I will probably go back at some point, but back to the homesick part....

See, when I got back to RHUL I still wasn't sure whether I liked it and I was getting a little negative about it. My friends of course told me they liked it, but I didn't believe them. Not one bit. All I wanted to do was walk into my house back in Carlisle and ask my mom, who would have told me right away whether it was horrible. I felt pretty homesick for a while because the picture I sent her from my phone didn't give her a good enough idea of what it looked like. I wasn't going to be able to get her opinion and that made me sad. I even wrote to her and told her that, yes, my crazy new hair had made me homesick.

Lauren Abend

I'm back!..

Hi everyone!! I just got back from Greece and may I say.. I feel really really homesick.. It helped seeing my family and friends again but now I feel that the distance between us is so big.. Anyway, I'm ok, no worries :)

I just wanted to respond to Dan's enquiries.

Generally on cleaning products I haven't got much to say as I never did a lot of cleaning when I was at home. There's just one thing.. the green liquid soap we used at home to wash the dishes. I just hated the way it smelt but I remember being young and squeezing the bottle to make hundreds of small bubbles. Now at uni when I do my dishes I use a different soap: it's yellow and smells like lemon but it's just not the same thing! Although I hated that soap and I thought it was bad for the hands as well, I was used to it and now In can't find it in England.

Now... a slinky?? I don't think I've ever seen one in my life.. So I'm pretty sure I don't have one. I'd really like to see one though because I thought Claire's idea was very interesting!

Also about my home when I'm fifty: I think of it as really modern and high-tech, having Big glass windows and letting a lot of sunlight in, it would have a really big bookcase with tons of old and new books. But it would also be very warm, cozy and homey, with a kitchen filled with baked food smells and not microwave cooked meals. I would also like to have a garden and cats and dogs running around, because I've always lived in an apartment and I never had that.

Lastly (phew!..) I sort of had this idea in my head for quite a while now but then I saw that Lauren thought the exact same thing so I agree with her. So, what if we all cuddled and twirled up inside the sheets? Doesn't that feel sort of like home? Or just al of us lying on the floor as we would in a giant bed, and the sheet would serve as a... sheet, to cover us. Pretty simple and obvious but still feels like home!

See you all soon!

Elina Pissiotti

Input from Mars!! [sic]

I don't actually associate any smells of household cleaning products with home. I guess an obvious one would be the smell of fabric softener though, those guys sure know how to capture heaven in a woolly jumper! why does it feel so good to put a soft, fragrant, big jumper on when you're cold?

Another thing I'd like to mention is a bit of a wierd one. I finally realised I live away from home and am self-dependant when I replaced the toilet block in my cistern! I realised I've never done that before! How strange? And this one's not so much cleaning product related but cleaning related, when I bleach the floor in my en-suite I use a method of drying the floor that my dad taught me and which therefore makes me think of him. I put an old towel on the floor and shuffle around with it on my feet, drying the floor as I go! I'll give you a demonstration next lesson if you're at all unclear as to how this is carried out!

Maybe the reason I don't really associate cleaning products with home is the fact my dad is always changing the products he uses, he's a house-husband by the way, he always buys products that are on offer "two for the price of one" and all that jazz, so there isn't a product which he's stuck with really. My dad's brilliant!

I've never owned a slinky I'm afraid but was always jealous of the kids that were given every toy that's ever been popular!

The home I'll live in when I'm fifty will be self-cleaning so i don't have to get up off my arse! No not really!.... I think I'll own so many cats so there will be cat hair everywhere and I'll complain about it all day but I'll never stop getting more and more cats. Maybe I'll have some puppies too.I'll have a massive sofa that you sink into when you sit on it. Also I'll have a massive television with a Bose (TM) sound system and a huge working fire. I'll have a four poster double bed and a huge bath that the water tank will have trouble filling up! I'll hopefully live in Wales in some remote area with my husband/wife and maybe we'll have some kids too.

As for the "home" images, I think a thought provoking image would be a load of our group huddled up with the sheet round them and only their eyes showing. This could represent your idea of immigrants' travelling places that become homes or just people struck with poverty. Mybe each of the people in the huddle should look around at the audience, looking into their eyes to provoke unsaid responses.

Sam Wood

Lamentastic!

Hey guys, just finished watching the film of Lament that Rachael kindly organised for us and I just thought I'd jot down some quick points that I noted after watching a whole performance from the company.

• Continuous theme of repeating a certain gesture. I know we discussed this when we watched parts of Timeless, but it's not until you watch a full feature that you realise the extent they go to in order to link all the fragmented scenes together.
• The use of overlapping and smooth transactions between each scene in order to create a coherant piece of theatre.
• When watching we noted a technique which none of us could understand where it involved long pauses randomly during the middle of certain extracts for no apparent reasons. It did kind of look as though they had forgotten their lines but I can't think of a real reason for doing this! Anyone have any ideas of can shed any light as to why they would do this?
• The importance of multimedia as a backdrop. For example, in Lament there was the showing of the shopping channel and the news in the background which intertwined with the specific scene.
• I think everyone will enjoy the play after watching it. I know that I did. For some reason it becomes much clearer on stage and I know that some people didn't enjoy the fragmented nature of the script. Although it is still very jumpy and often hard to stay focused on, it is helped by the fluidity between the scenes.
• The ending for the show is very important. It seems very choreographed and often sums up the intentions of the show. Even though I wasn't really listening to the monologues, the combination of movement, music and sounds from the actors created a real emotional response for some reason.

Anyway, that was just some quick thoughts I had and I would really recommend watching this one especially as it was such a disappointing read (for me personally!)

Claire Stainer

My Mum, Sue

I've been reading other people's descriptions of their ideal homes and the main thing they have in common is that their homes are all full of people. This suggests that the essential ingredients for the home is that it is lived in. It's that feeling that the space is inhabited that makes that particular space homely. Remember when we were talking about show homes and how they are designed to be made to feel lived in but it is never quite achieved. Anyway, I guess my ideal home would be big, but cosy. Big kitchen and fireplaces, like Julia, are essential probably because my house now has a beautiful fireplace in every room. the idea of the kitchen being the central meeting place is nice. The garden would be big and natural looking, probably a bit wild with maybe a wood and stream at the end where my children could experience their first broken bones exploring. (Only joking.) I dont really like to think of where I'm going to be when in years to come so I don't know the location of this house.

As for the slinky, afraid I broke all 5 of mine which I have owned over the years but could put you in touch with my supplier.

The smells which remind me of home are Persil liquid capsules. My mother, Sue, supplied me with two boxes of them upon my arival in uni and I haven't needed to buy more yet but I can assure you that won't be changing. Often at home once Sue had taken the warm clothes out of the tumble dryer, I would spread them out over the bed and roll around in them because they smelled warm and clean. However my mother would then shout and tell me no one would ever marry me if they knew how messy I was.

Philippa Thomas

My Definition

Having read Claire's post I started thinking about when I've experienced homesickness and what it was about that time of being away from home that made me react in such a way. I also got to thinking about comfort zones. For anybody who doesnt know about comfort zones they refer to areas in which a person feels secure and happy. Everybody has different comfort zones and people's comfort zones can change depending on your experiences throughout your life; however, your emotional state of mind can also greatly affect your comfort zones. I first heard the term when I was in India in July with a organisation called World Challenge; we were trecking for 14 days through the Himalayas. A few of us were discussing, with the leader, a girl who was finding the experience particularly hard and he explained to us that some people had
small comfort zones and others have large. In going to India we were all expanding our comfort zones, but this girl was having trouble adapting to this new way of life and was therefore feeling homesick. This is therefore how I would define homesickness, an awareness of being away from what you consider to be comfortable. I say awareness because i think that this is a major factor of homesickness.

As a child I was moved around a lot between my mother's house and both my grandparents' houses, and the only time I ever felt homesick was if I was ever very ill. I feel that this was because at a young age the boundaries of my comfort zones were stretched, therefore I found it easy to feel comfortable in a number of surroundings and environments. However when I went to Spain last Easter I was going to escape a number of problems at home. As soon as I arrived I experienced homesickness in away that I had never done before. I rang home crying and felt a dread at the fact that I had no way of getting back. I also think that an aspect of homesickness is your ability to get home. Here I have my car; in reality I'm never more that a couple of hours' drive from Cardiff; however I think that if I was not able to get home, I would probably have experienced homesickness here. It's that feeling of isolation and inability two return which makes you want it so bad and I think makes home sickness. It's nice to have the option to go back even if you never end up using it.

Philippa Thomas

Smells and Perfumes

Me and Kim are on the same wave length when it comes to washing powders! Since I can remember my mum has always used Persil washing powder, and it's not so much the result of cleanliness but more the smell. I love it when the washing is put on the radiators to dry on a long winters evening, when it's just getting dark and the street lights are being switched on and you walk in to your house and you can smell a fresh, clean smell... It makes all the difference.

The perfect house for me in 31 years time, would have to be in Italy. It would be huge, because I intend on having a large family, (four children). It will have high ceilings and big rooms and a huge fireplace made out of mortar stones. We will continue lighting the fire until March, because I love the smell of woodsmoke mixed with cold Winter air. It will be full of memorabilia from far away places... Buddhist statues, African paintings, rugs from Mexico, carvings from India, to remind me of all the beautiful places we'd visited... I'd have wooden floors with sheepskin rugs everywhere to retain the warmth and beams running across the ceilings... I'd want the house to always be full of noise and chaos, with children and grandchildren coming to visit and friends and relatives coming to eat...

Ummmmm... Anyway, I really could go on for ever so I'll leave it here. Hope it's useful!

Julia Angeli

Home Info

Ok, I don't think any domestic products really remind me of home, perhaps the closest (and strangest) thing would be Dettol Anti-bacterial Surface Cleaner, just because it was my job to feed the animals and pack the dishwasher at night, and I used to clean the surfaces with Detol. Oh, and Cif (lemon) for the bathroom! Like Kim, had to take some of that with me to Uni, and no, I will not change to a cheaper brand.

Don't have a slinky, sorry.

House at 50 would be large, either in New York or just outside London. I want to be the 'big mama', you know, like Italian grannies who are the centre of the family? So I'd have a gorgeous, huge kitchen with paintings on the walls, that would be the centre of the house. There'd be quite a lot of people living there, I think. Probably my mum and sister as well as my husband and kids. I like the idea of the house having lots of life in it. So, a big kitchen/breakfast area, living room (decorated in deep reds and browns)and dinning room (very modern, large table, hanging lights) and several bedrooms (plus a spacious walk-in wardrobe pour moi!). I really like ivory and cream coloured walls, so most of the colour would come from the furniture (mostly wood, some glass). The house would have a traditional styling and always be clean. My basic need is to be close to a big city but away from the crowds/noise/ugly office blocks.

And a little idea for the sheet and stick homes, what about just one person sitting on the sheet (folded) to represent a tramp?

Alice Hansen

Converted Barns and Persil

When I'm 50 I would like to be living in a large detached country house (possibly a barn conversion) in the Cotswolds or anywhere in the country near Oxford. I've always pictured my house to have a huge kitchen, mainly because we've never had a very large kitchen and I've always wanted a huge Aga as a central piece. There's just something about Agas that I really love, the idea that they heat the whole house as well as cooking your dinner, and they just look so elegant, and really stand out as the central focus of the room. The whole house would have an old feel to it, exposed wooden beams and wooden flooring with gorgeous rugs decorating every floor, brought from far-off corners of the world. (Hubby and I would have spent the first few years of married bliss travelling the world!)

The living room would have an open log fire and the whole family would snuggle around it during the winter!

Ideally my house would have a really large garden so my and my gorgeous husband could take the dogs (two border collies!) for walks on a wintery Sunday morning together. Also in the summer it would be perfect for barbecues and entertaining!

As for cleaning products, I have always associated Tesco's non-bio washing tablets with home. Now I know this may sound slightly strange, but ever since I can remember, my mum has always used these to wash our clothes. The really weird thing is that when I came to University, the first washing powder I bought was this one, I remember I didn’t even look down the aisle in Tesco's to see if anything better was on offer. It was an instant and automatic decision in my mind that I must buy that exact brand. Even yesterday, when I attempted to buy a Persil washing powder (just to see if I could!) I found myself telling my mind that 'no, it's too expensive and probably wouldn’t work any better anyway'.

I wonder if I will ever be able to buy a different washing powder without having a guilty concience.

Kim Varvell

My Home in 50 Years

I've been trying to think of cleaning, domestic stuff that reminds me of home and the only really obvious choice for me is Mr Sheen polish spray, very random! Mum always went to South Africa and every time she came back we would panic because the house was a tip and basically the only cleaning the rest of my family could do was polish with this spray, cos mum has such a thing about dust. Also like Nia was saying about Calpol, Lemsip really really reminds me of home. I cant stand the stuff but I was always given it when I was even ill. It probably reminds me more of the person giving it to me.

I think I have a slinky at home, which I could get if needed but not one with me now.

In 50 years I want at least two homes. A huge luxurious mansion with a swimming pool in hollywood and a cute cottage in the country somewhere in England. Actually I want three cos I want one overlooking the beach in Cape Town as well. All of them would be really homely and have loads of photos everywhere. A large mix of modern and traditional would be cool and I want lots of stuff reminding me of everything I've done with my life. By then hopefully I'll have grandchildren, so a massive playroom for them would be great. To be honest I think the people in it will make the home instead of the house itself. So as long as I have a huge loving family with me it doesn’t really matter where I'll live, although that mansion would be nice!

Kelly Barton

Family is Home

As far as cleaning goes I am an absolute clean freak! I love cleaning, sorting out my room etc. so for me, cleaning is something which I definately associate with home, and i have to admit that I even clean other peoples homes (friends, boyfriend) and it definitely seems more 'livable in' once I'm done with it!

My personal favourites are:

• sorting out old papers, books, videos, things that you really do not need anymore!,
• and I like cleaning dishes when I am at my boyfriend's house... I use fairy really.. thats a bit too commercial though, so it doesnt really ring of home, you know? huh

The home: I have a lot of ideas about how my home would look like but the main main main thing would be that it would have to have enough space for my whole family, so that when anyone wanted to visit they could, and could stay with me and my family for as long as they liked. A mini -apartment in the house for my parents etc. Family is home for me.

Dana Karic

Home Sweet Home in 31 years Time

For some reason I don't like associating house cleaning products with the thought of home. Probably because of the smell they produce. It's just so sterile and neutral that there seems to be no personality to anywhere touched with them. I suppose the smell of furniture polish has that reminiscing thought of a lazy Sunday when my mum used to have to round the family up when we were younger and give us each a job. Polishing was always the easiest so I tended to pick that one!

I don't have a slinky. But wish I did.

If I imagine my house when I'm 50 I see it as the most cosy and welcoming place that all my friends know. Its always full of people and friends so there is a constant vibrant atmosphere. Its fairly large but so comforting that you don't notice the size of the house. There's a large log fire (real logs I might add, none of your Argos imitation) and just like Lauren's real image of home, there is the constant smell of fresh cooking and baked bread. Me and my husband are very happy together as I have retired work early to look after the house. At the top floor there is a massive sky light which lets all the light into the house so it is very bright. All over the house there is art work which friends and family have painted over the years. Everywhere, there are small mementos which all have such meaning to me personally but to others would just seem like rubbish. There are photographs all over the house from travelling and of friends and family.

When I was watching the sheet and pole houses being built, I could see what Dan meant when he said that they were very building like. Perhaps the task was difficult because we all have a personal image of what we would call home and therefore buildings emerged just because they're an unbiased representation of a 'home'. The image that I had of making a home with the sticks and sheets is very similar to that of what Lauren blogged. I imagined the sheet being laid out on the floor with people curled up around the edges each with the sheet pulled slightly over them for warmth. This reminds me of girly sleep overs that I had when I was younger, and also jumping on the bed with my mum early in the weekend and curling in any spaces.

Claire Stainer

Video Viewing

Rachael has arranged to watch some Suspect Culture videos, probably including Lament and Timeless. This will be Wednesday, 10 November at 7pm in the Founders (East) Common Room. This will be a very good opportunity to get more familiar with Suspect Culture's work so I recommend that all who can turn up for this.

Dan Rebellato

Hindi and Airports

I trawled through the language section in my lonely planet for India and Sri Lanka and couldn't find words for homesick so looked for simply home or sick. Suprisingly couldnt find the word 'sick' in my Sri Lanka guide, or the word 'home' anywhere, which isn't very useful! However there was the phrase 'I'm lost' which i thought might be quite fitting for our piece.
So here goes;

Hindi

• Namaste - Hello
• Mai Bimar Hu - I'm sick
• Mai Rasta Bhul Gaya/Gayi Hu (f/m) - I'm Lost

Tamil

• Vanakkam - Hello
• Naan Valee Tavuree-vittehn - I'm lost

Sinhalese

• Maa-maa Nativelaa - I'm lost

Secondly i just wanted to comment on Alices' blog about liminal spaces. Theres a bit where she talked about signs, like signs in airports, which reminded me of a section in the book I researched from which is The Art Of Travel by Alain De Botton.

On disembarking at Amsterdam's Schipol Airport...I am struck by a sign hanging from the ceiling that announces the ways to the arrivals hall, the exit and the transfers desks. It is a bright yellow sign, one metre high and two across,
simple in design...Despite its simplicity, even mundanity, the sign delights me,
a delight for which the adjective 'exotic', though unusual, seems apt. The
exoticism is located in the particular areas: in the double a of Aankomst, in
the neighbourliness of a u and an i in Uitgang, and in the choice of practical
modernist fonts, Frutiger or Univers.

If the sign provokes such pleasure, it is in part because it offers the first conclusive evidence of having arrived elsewhere. It is a symbol of abroad. Though it may not seem distinctive to the casual eye, such a sign would never exist in precisely this form in my own country. There it would be less yellow, the typeface would be softer and more nostalgic, there would - out of greater indifference to the confusion of foreigners - probably be no subtitles and the language would contain no double as ... a plug socket, a bathroom tap, a jam jar or an airport sign may tell us more than its designers intended, it may speak of the nation that made it ... If i called the Schipol sign exotic, it was because it succeeded in suggesting, vaguely but intensely, that the country which had made it and which lay beyond the uitgang might in critical ways prove more congenial than my own to my temperment and concerns. This sign was a promise of happiness.

Although this quote might seem random and actually comes from the point of view of wanting to shake off ones 'home' in search of the 'exotic,' if you look at the opposite view it begins to make some sense.

I think i am trying to relate it to the idea of globalisation and homesickness, like the blog about being able to walk into a Burger King in La Paz and, I imagine, it looking exactly the same as the one on your high street back home (as is unfortunately the same with McDonalds the world over). I may be slightly ashamed to say it but the same thing happened to me when I spotted a Pizza Hut in Calcutta.

It is the idea that even the smallest, simplest things can make you feel at home, even if just for a moment, or totally 'lost' like in the quote. Also I like it cos it's random and looks a little too deeply into a simple object which is something that I am often accused of!

Rachael Smith

Here's what you need to know...

Well to start I can't really think of any house cleaning products that remind me of home, but I did bring Woolite with me, which is a clothes washing detergent for fabrics that need extra care. I have always used it - probably because my mom has always used it - and I wasn't sure if I would be able to find it here.

I do not have a slinky.

In 50 years I want to be living in a brownstone in an old city (Boston, New York, London). I want it to have wooden floors that I can cover in rugs from all of the places I have been to and a really big kitchen with stainless steel appliances. I want the walls to be covered in paintings and corners to be occupied by sculptures that I have personally picked out from various galleries around the world. I also want there to be extra bedrooms that are warm and welcoming so that friends and family can feel at home when they come to visit. I think it would also be best if there was a balcony or roof access so that I can have a bit of a garden and a place to sit outside when
it is warm.

As far as the sheet and stick 'home' the only image that really comes into my mind is everyone huddled together under the blanket. Maybe something like one of those pictures where there is a big group so some people are behind and everyone's arms are overlapping and then have the blanket covering them all around so all you can really see are the faces. I don't know what we could do with the sticks, possibly just arrange them in a circle formation around the group. Seeing something like this would remind me of the weekend days when I was a really little kid and my brothers and I would climb into my parents bed and we would all fit under the covers. My parents would usually be reading and my brothers and I would just pester them until they got out of bed and played with us.

Hope that helps!

Lauren Abend

Don't Leave Home

Tuesday this week I was feeling a little poorly sick suffering from that dastardly freshers flu!! and it was then that for the first time since I've been here that I felt truly homesick. I think it was the fact that normally when I'm ill my mum will rush out and get me some medicine (usually Calpol... ok it's for kids but it's just yummy!) but here there was no one really to do that for me and all I really wanted was a hug and to be in my own bed at home! :( This got me thinking about our project and I thought that maybe we could stage part of it in a doctor's surgery?! This idea fits in with that of liminal spaces and we could also incorporate some of the comments from last lesson's discussion on how it feels inside when we are homesick

I also agree with a few of the group's suggestions (I think it was Claire and Annie) to use live music in the piece, I think this would be more effective as when a song is sung or even just spoken we truly listen to the words and the tone in which it is expressed can convey different emotions and create atmosphere more, rather than when it is simply played over a sound system. The suggestions of songs so far are great and also Dido's Don't Leave Home has some nice lyrics in it

If you're cold I'll keep you warm
If you're low just hold on
Cause I will be your safety
Oh don't leave home

Where I would like to live when I'm 50....
Living in the oh-so-exciting Flint (it's named after a rock, get the picture?!) in wonderful North Wales has never been for me the place I see myself living in for the rest of my life. Ever since I was quite young I have always wanted to move to the USA so hopefully when I'm 50 I see myself living there in a nice little house with those white picket fences and little trees dotted all the way along the pavement! ok so maybe my view of America is highly idealistic and based on films I've seen because I've never actually been there! I think that wherever I end up I would simply want to be a settled down with a dishy husband!! and some luvly jubly kids and my house would be really cosy with lots of family photographs and drawings that my children had done when they were about five dotted all over the place even though they're all grown up now!

Well happy blogging guys I'll be back in no time to post some action packed ideas!

Nia Johnston