How Time Goes Faster As You Get Older.blog

Carly has a prickly relationship with Israeli bureaucracy. But then, so do most Israelis. She isn’t the only one to get mad and frustrated by the ups and downs of forms, government organisations, utilities, and yet more forms. It seems to be a leftover from the British Mandate. It just doesn’t make sense. Israel is leaps and bounds ahead on the ‘technology front’ but despite this, it is a country beset by fear of risk and uncertainty. She muses about Malachi, the person who runs the clinic where she works. He has lots of insurance policies in place. Even for third party events; the old ‘slipping on the banana skin on the floor’ issue as well as medical malpractice cover. He even pays an extra several 1,000 shekels to an independent insurance agency to check that these policies are compliant. It feels like everyone is behaving like owls and swivelling their heads to every degree possible to make sure they are ‘covered’.

Carly has never amassed so many pieces of paper for years. Everyone and their dog need a signature in triplicate and endless texts of one-time passwords. Well, thank goodness for google translate – actually most of the time. It does sometimes make a right old hash out of translating so that Carly is not just none-the-wiser but sometimes much worse off. Carly has had such a problem with bureaucracy since her move to live in Israel, that she has allowed herself to only deal with one issue per day. This is a much better way to look after herself. Otherwise, she might fall off the deep end into a mire of pity, sadness, and incredulity that she ever bothered to live there.

It didn’t start when she arrived in the country as a new immigrant. No, no, no! Way before. There were a number of meetings and of course more forms to fill in to sort out her rights and benefits before leaving London. Obviously made harder by bringing in her lovable mutt Talulah. The usual things like her birth certificate, a copy of her UK passport as well as a police-check to see if she had criminal tendencies, was dodgy in any way or a tax evader. And a letter from her rabbi confirming she is Jewish. Nonetheless, what Carly couldn’t fathom was why every single form needed her father’s name. Never, ever her mother’s. For heaven’s sake, Carly was 58 when she came. She is lucky to have both parents alive, but they are old-ish and what on earth do they have to do with her becoming an Israeli? And as she knows from when she did genetic research 10% of fathers aren’t actually ‘the real’ fathers. Really, they should ask for her mother’s name. Best not discuss that with Mum and Dad, deliberates Carly.

And then there were some apostilled documents that had to be additionally countersigned by a solicitor that she was divorced. The expenses were racking up. And eventually she had the green light. She was off to Israel to live and to become an Israeli. Finally, she was making Aliyah. Whoo-bloody-hoo.

There were some bits of Israeli bureaucracy that really did work. When she arrived, she was expected, greeted, given a landing card, some 2,500 shekels in cash and an Israeli sim card. A man whisked her through the airport to help her collect her bags and find Talulah. He asked who the dog crate belonged to. Carly told him ‘The airport’ but neglected to tell him it was London Heathrow, not Ben-Gurion, Tel Aviv. Hey, she pondered to herself, she is sure someone would make good use of it. For sure it was enormous and would not fit in the car.

Talulah was on a one-way ticket. Carly may go back and forth on aeroplanes here, there and everywhere but sorry, old girl, you’re staying in Israel, Talulah. Maybe if she could persuade the airport authorities that Talulah was a therapy dog for her anxiety, then Talulah could come on the plane and not be in the hold. Nevertheless, everyone who knows Carly is very clear. Anxiety isn’t really a Carly problem. It is actively banished. It seems odd that Carly spends most of her time with children with anxiety parading as medical problems such as headaches, tummy aches, tremors and nausea. Carly wonders how as a paediatrician, she can be empathetic to the plight of overwhelming social anxiety in children. But she is there to make diagnoses. The parents can then do the rest…

Carly was collected with her dog and bags by her brother, Mickey the fish and daughter, Boo. They were waving an Israeli flag that her friend Galina had bedecked with green jewels and spirally purple lines. They went to stay in his place as her shipment was stuck in the Ashkelon docks until she could send over her landing card. She was delighted it was in the country and the shipments hadn’t been subject to a pirate attack. She had heard of these, and she was excited to be reunited with her stuff soon. She had said goodbye to it six weeks previously and had lived frugally with only her black and white clothes to wear, a minimal amount of cutlery and crockery. She had split her double bed in half with her daughter Boo in Walthamstow so they each had a single one for a few weeks. She felt a bit like King Solomon who had been allowed his way by cutting a baby in half. 

 Carly does like to get on with things. And even though everyone countenanced her against going nearby to her brother’s house to get her identity card, did she listen? Heck no! She bumbled her way in without an appointment, ran around the corner to a photo booth where they only spoke Russian but successfully came out with her ID card. Whoo-hoo. First step done. It was, of course, registered to the wrong address, so she had to go to another government office with proof of where she lived to get the correct address. The problem there was that when you own a property the land registry department gives you a plot number and not an actual street address. So unnecessarily byzantine…

The bank was also an issue. She had to collect her credit card in person as her status had changed. The woman told her three times consecutively that it was not in a pile of them. But Carly had been told to be insistent and, sure enough, it was eventually found. For some bizarre reason, despite having plenty of shekels in her bank account, the card limit was miniscule. It only covered a bit of pet food, and some coffees. Carly was forever petitioning her banker (the long-suffering Gilad) to increase the limit which is now at an all-time high. 

However, the account has now been drained by Carly’s ferocious spending and current lack of patients to see in Israel to bring in income. Not helped by the huge outlay just to be able to see patients such as employing Veronique the bookkeeper, Matthew the tax accountant, malpractice and third-party insurance (seems the clinic covers the banana skin scenario but not the if Carly gets dizzy and drops a baby one) and fees to the lawyer Sam to get the medical licence in the first place. Carly has seen a sum total of two children in two months despite opening up 30 slots a week. Everyone informs her she must be patient. But this just isn’t Carly…

 Besides getting her medical licence which included a trip to Jerusalem to collect it as she doesn’t receive her post, she also had to apply for her driving licence. When she turned up at some back-of-beyond-office the clerk asked her if she wanted to drive a truck. Because she was in the wrong office for this. No, said Carly, who’d waited months for this appointment and had had her vision checked specially for this. She only wanted to drive a car. Well, said the clerk, Carly would have to go away, and start all over again. Including having another eyesight test. But by now Carly knew that you don’t give up that easily. She asked if there was another way? The clerk said she should see a man outside who might help her. He didn’t speak English, and her Hebrew was rudimentary but between them she filled in the right form, re-presented the now correct form to the clerk, who rolled her eyes, said the eyesight test should suffice and went to the printer and gave the paper licence to Carly. What a palaver…

 There are some institutions that do work really well. Like the Tel Aviv municipality. Carly sent them a message to show them a diseased tree outside her property and within eight hours it was gone. A replacement took a bit longer. She signed up for their app. This meant she could find out about all sorts of workshops and get cheap sunbeds on the beach. Then she looked down at the form which was pleasingly electronic this time. She found that, not only did she have a ‘Digi-Tel’ card for Tel Aviv residents with her name on it, but also, she had a ‘Digi-Dog’ card for her dog with Talulah’s name on it. It felt a bit like a Big Brother moment until she remembered all dogs must be registered with the municipality and her vet practice had kindly done that for her. Something completely joined up for once.

The worst agency in Israel is known to be the post office. Carly realised after a few months that she never received any mail. In fact, neither did any of her neighbours. The only way round this seemed to be to get a PO Box. This required a huge amount of effort but there was always another customer in the post office to guide her through it and tell her that she mustn’t cry, and the post office is well known to be truly dreadful. She is only a bit upset as her PO Box isn’t a prime number. But she thinks this is another battle not worth fighting.

But people come together over all these bureaucratic nightmares so that Carly can easily see why Israel is one of the happiest countries in the world. Only after Scandinavia and those countries are just too cold. All these ‘happy countries’ tend to do very well in the Eurovision Song Contest too. Although why Israel is included in this iconic European singing competition is rather bizarre. But at least Israel is quite near Europe, unlike Australia. How ridiculous, thinks Carly. 

Just like I took my kids skiing (Betsy and Toby with Joshua), I suggested I take Harry, Gemma and Luna away. We chose Akko as I like it and we could easily travel up by train. We stayed in a fabulous apartment (part of the Arabesque Hotel Group) and I made all the clothes and weapons for crusader Barbie before we left. I used metallic thread to look like chainmail. I didn’t want her to wear a cross so did a spiral which I smudged. The shield was a metal lid that I used my bradawl to make 8 holes and threaded purple elastic and covered the centre with red chenille. I made her sword from coffee stirrers.

I based her on the anime picture and made her shoes from a cut up hair bobble. I used metallic ribbon for the top bit of her shoes.

I went with my daughter Betsy, her boyfriend Joshua and my son Toby skiing in the Austrian bit of Italy. The south Tyrol or dolomites. We stayed in Das Majestic hotel and had a totally fab time. I made the outfits for Ski Barbie and skis from coffee stirrers.

Carly has long been a lover of learning new crafts. When she was at school, she wanted to go to an evening course to learn how to patchwork, but it was full. Carly wasn’t patient enough to wait for her space by calmly remaining on the waiting list. Oh no. That is just not how Carly is or was back then – over 4 decades ago. But the lacemaking class had spaces. It might have been more helpful to learn touch typing but she signed up for that another time. Useful and sensible but hardly creative. However, making lace really is incredibly slow and tedious and requires a whole load of specialist equipment. This includes a hard board for the base under the ‘lace pillow’, hay under some cotton (for the lacemaking area), pins, cotton thread to make the lace and bobbins. These last items could be either super functional, modern, and easy to ‘throw’ or utterly gorgeous and antique, but they were often wonky. For sure, they were all made from wood and usually decorated with beads to weigh them. However, not only was lacemaking slow and fiddly as a process, but it also needed immense attention to detail. Carly made some lavender bags, several bookmarks and half a Peter Pan collar. Lugging around the lace pillow and stopping the various lace bobbins from getting tangled up meant that Carly only committed to this for a number of years.

When she was studying clinical medicine in London, she found a patchwork class mid-week that had spaces. Whoo hoo. She really excelled at this, but her fellow medical students thought she was just a party pooper. Every Wednesday, after the statutory sports events all afternoon, the whole year group would meet at the Union Bar and get totally rat-arsed. Thursday morning lectures were almost always a write-off. Only Carly and a few students weren’t hung over. And Carly would be able to use her wonderful patchwork pencil case but there would be nobody there to admire it. Only the other ‘uncool’ students, who refused to get blind drunk the night before, were in attendance or at least in a fit state to learn. However, Carly does love a drink. She did then and she does now. However, back then the Union Bar was opaque because of all the cigarette smoke and Carly could never abide this.

Carly isn’t quite sure when she learnt to weave. But really… Just how complicated can it be to have strings going upwards and downwards (warp) and then having to put some other threads leftwards and rightwards (weft)? Certainly, much less complicated than knitting and crocheting, that she’d been doing since she was a child. She had a really tiny loom that could make something not much wider than a braid but was easy to transport about the place. Not as easy as a backstrap loom but that needed to be tied around a tree or pillar – not always readily available in the NHS! Being able to weave, reduced the tedium of being with women in labour whilst they took hours to ‘dilate’. This was during her obstetrics attachment as a medical student in Newham General Hospital in the 1980s. She made a memorable pair of braces where she managed to work out how to put letters into the weave. They said “Ades’ Braces” for the left hand one and “by Fertleperson” on the right hand one! They were black and white with red leather straps with buttonholes to attach to her then boyfriend’s trousers. All the midwives told her she couldn’t really give them to him as a present as they would smell of hospital. But some soap would sort that all out! She does wonder where they are now. And, anyway, no one really wears braces much anymore. She does still have some of the plain braid with her to fix all her dangly earrings on and it is still doing a good job all these years on!

Carly does love these craft holidays and for many years she went on knitting holidays. To chateaus, gites and hotels. She went on workshops and to retreats all over Europe and even to India. When Carly was much younger, she went on several weaving holidays to deepest, darkest west Wales. She had quite a lot of weeks of holiday once she was working as a junior doctor. Far more than her then lawyer husband, Ades. So off she went with her equally craft-obsessed friend Jordane to stay with a family who offered residential holidays where you could weave at all hours in their adjacent barn. Keith was a committed weaver and ran holidays to supplement his income from his chosen craft.

 Jordane and Carly were fairly early on in their medical careers. They had worked together at Norman Cross hospital for their very first job when they qualified. They were called ‘house-officers’ then. They are both sure that if the surgeons had chosen, they would have been ‘house-men’ but what on earth could Jordane and Carly do about their gender? At that time there were no terms in common use like non-binary, genderfluid, cisgender, agender, genderqueer, gender nonconforming, pangender, two-spirit, third gender and transgender. There probably should be an etcetera at the end of this list.

They both worked so hard and laughed and giggled the whole time. And then they went away to weave. The most memorable thing about these holidays was that Keith exclusively wove in orange and brown. It is hardly surprising that he needed to supplement his income by having a couple of renegade doctors come to stay!

When Carly went to India for her sabbatical before the pandemic, she made a list of 133 crafts to tackle. This number is the product of her two favourite prime numbers, seven and 19. In her blog she displayed all 133 in alphabetical reverse order as she likes to support the underdog. A and B get far too much recognition. She knew someone at medical school who changed his name to be the first on the list. Originally his name was Omar Sheik, and he changed it to Omar Al-Sheik, but he didn’t foresee a student coming in, partway through the course, called Simone Alacrity. “Ha”, thought Carly and her friends. Serves him right for being so conniving.

Back to her list of 133 crafts;

1.     Yoga
2.     Yarn bombing
3.     Woodwork
4.    Window art
5.    Weaving

Weaving was number five. Carly isn’t really sure why Yoga counts as a craft. Really it is a physical activity but maybe she had in mind she would introduce some new poses like ‘The Knitting Pose’ where you twist your arms around each other and ‘The Weaving Pose’ where you interweave your fingers! She did complete the other four. She yarn bombed a tree in Pushkar, Rajasthan and recently returned after a five-year absence to see some of it still there. She was delighted her yarn decoration had survived – even more so as the materials were natural – for sure acrylic would still be there but real craftspeople like Carly prefer natural fibres. She also did some woodwork although it was pretty rudimentary as she didn’t really have the requisite tools. She also spent some time doing window art using some special pens but had to leave them on windows where she made them. At least someone is enjoying them – well so she hopes! She did, however, seriously consider how she was going to weave in India.

 She knew that there would be lots of home looms of all sizes as India is a country of sumptuous weaving, but their looms would not be available if they were mid-way through a project, which they usually were. And she didn’t stay that long in any place where they had these large looms. In the end, she had an idea that she wanted to do a small spiral weaving project using the string she had brought with her. She had her sabbatical theme of purple and spirals and wanted to make a hanging incorporating this. So, she used a cardboard shoe box to make the loom! Once she had secured the purple warp on a stick just inside the box, she tied down the bottom end and used a tapestry needle to thread magenta coloured string in and out to make a spiral. And then it was easy to make. She finishes it off with her signature tassels at the bottom.

Sometimes, Carly wove the fabric for other projects. She found a cool weaving establishment in Hackney, London where the very kind owner, Filomena, had already set up and threaded the warp on the loom and all Carly needed to do was load thread onto the bobbin and with a speedy throwing motion, chuck, yes literally chuck, this from side to side whilst operating the pedals to raise alternate warp threads before whacking back the heddle between each throw to bed down the weft. Carly felt she might be in a weaving sweatshop, but she was paying to do it and not being taken for a ride as many young people in factories are in less affluent countries. 

And then joy of joys. Filomena turned up as a contestant in another one of Carly’s beloved TV reality series, ‘Interior Design Masters’. This one was still on the BBC unlike GBBO (annoyingly now on channel 4 with loads of annoying repetitive adverts). In this series, the contestants are tasked with remodelling a room or a larger space either individually or in teams. Filomena wore the most bizarre of outfits, including a clown ensemble, often looking like an overgrown toddler. She stayed in the competition longer because she was truthful, whilst her fellow contestant wasn’t. Liars will usually get their comeuppance. Especially when caught on camera. Carly smiles ruefully. Unfortunately, however, Filomena didn’t win.

 Carly will continue to learn new crafts as it is part of her very being. That is how she is, and this is great for her to stave off dementia!

Carly has an ambiguous relationship with all sorts of things and all manner of people. That is the nature of someone who is contrary at times. She is reminded of Mary, who might have really been called Mary-Mary, who had a garden and is not to be confused with Little Miss Muffet who sat on something. As a paediatrician, Carly has had to prescribe a lot of medication for children over the years. This isn’t really an ambiguous relationship (Carly and prescribing). It is just what she and all her colleagues do. If she were a surgeon she could perform operations, and if she were a radiologist, she could take various images of patients. But she is a physician and really there isn’t much in the way of treatment that she can administer. There is talking and there are drugs. When she was a medical student, she would practise saying complicated drug names in front of a mirror. Even now she finds it difficult to remember the name of the new drug she wrote a guideline for in the last year (dextropropoxyphene). She has become a teensy bit lazy with learning this sort of name. It is so long and unwieldy. But it does work. The drug that is. Not the learning of the name. She tries hard not to over-prescribe medication. Most children’s ailments get better all by themselves. And it is important to heed guidelines about not prescribing antibiotics unnecessarily. This is because they are often inappropriately used to treat viral infections and so, by definition, don’t work. But also, the bacteria get resistant to the drug and so when they are needed for a bacterial infection, they don’t actually work anymore. Unsurprisingly, there is pressure to resist prescribing unnecessary antibiotics and for some utterly bizarre reason this has been termed ‘antibiotic stewardship’. Who on earth coined this phrase was on a mission to mask understanding and make things unnecessarily complicated. But Carly has taken advantage of this by getting involved in a virtual reality scenario to see which types of GPs are able to resist prescribing antibiotics for an elderly woman requested by her very demanding daughter, both of whom were avatars. It had certainly been a fun project. And the results. More senior doctors were better than junior ones.

Carly has often been involved with prescribing projects. She helped launch an online teaching tool to encourage safer prescribing of medicines for children. This group was headed up by a colleague at a childrens’ teaching hospital. He was lovely and kind, but Carly always felt he was about to drop dead by self-combustion, as he looked like he was always about to blow a gasket. He seemed very highly strung which meant Carly had to really reign herself in when they were working together on this project. She didn’t want to be responsible for him detonating himself because of her exuberant nature. 

Carly felt that the Medicines-for-Children’s website was really helpful and when she found out there was a restricted number of parent information leaflets on commonly used medicines, she set about resolving that. She involved a whole team of doctors in training. This was the easy part. The bureaucracy was the hard part. It always is when dealing with large organisations. In the end, many years later, this website covers far more drugs.

Carly feels she has had to learn from her prescribing mistakes. Over the years she has made a number. Luckily no one came to any harm. “Phew”, muses Carly. And she has put her energies from feeling guilty about these prescribing misdemeanours to use. 

Early on in her career, a toddler came into the Emergency Department in extremis. The family only spoke French, so it was difficult to work out what had happened. Essentially, the child had a blocked nose, and the family had squirted Karvol up his nostrils causing him to struggle even more with his breathing. Things calmed down but Carly couldn’t really understand why they had done this. Then she looked at the packaging and realised that the photos showing how you were supposed to apply this decongestant liquid to the pillow could be misinterpreted and were misleading. The pillow or handkerchief looked quite like a nose. And the fact they couldn’t understand the written information meant Carly now really did understand. 

So, she took it upon herself to contact the manufacturer. But they seemed very uninterested. Carly was rather bemused, but as one who is serendipitous by nature, instead she wrote it up as a journal article. Being very junior in her team, she sought help from a more experienced colleague. Let’s call her Kathleen Bumble. The initials ‘KB’ are the same. Clearly there was going to be an issue, as she would ordinarily just use the real ones. In the end they wrote the case up as a letter for the Lancet. This is a very prestigious journal and Carly was so excited. It was the very start of her academic career. But when the letter was published, it only had KB’s name on it. Carly was bemused and contacted the journal. They said that KB was unsure of how to spell Carly’s surname and so left it off. Normally, they would contact all the authors, but only in the States where this journal is published. Now Carly was actually furious. Totally, hopping mad. It was her work and her case, and she had merely asked for some help. After lots of phone calls and letters, as the internet and emails were only in their infancy then, eventually, Carly managed to sort this out. But it was a very important lesson. One she has NEVER, EVER forgotten. It must be really significant, as Carly so very rarely uses SHOUTY CAPITALS.

Since then, Carly has written many peer review papers and published abstracts. Right from the get-go, even if the project may fold and get nowhere, Carly ensures that the author list and order is clearly laid out. As her senior mentor and colleague, Ben Lloyd (of course this is his real name as this is complementary) said “The goal is always clarity”. Carly did a number of presentations on this Karvol case. She called it the Karvol Kid and images of a child with a Stetson riding around in the Wild West, on a horse with packets of Karvol in his pockets would pop up in her head and she would smile quietly. She even made slides of her niece Harriet who was a toddler taking the Karvol and putting it up her nose. Carly and Harriet’s mother had to keep warning her this was just for the camera, and she must never do it in real life. She never did and also became a doctor. Maybe this early, formative experience influenced her career choice.

Karvol was something Carly used often for her children when they were blocked up with colds. Of course, she put it on their pillows. Or on handkerchiefs. By this stage the packaging had miraculously changed, so it was clear you didn’t squirt it up your child’s nostrils. In fact, she still has some, mostly as a memento. The company no longer makes Karvol, as it folded in 2013. Carly dares not look at the expiry date on the packaging. She believes anyway that medicines probably just get a little bit weaker over time. Actually, she couldn’t resist. She took a look at the packaging. It is now October 2023. The expiry date was March 2010. What’s 13 years between friends?

Later on in her training, Carly went to work at Guy’s Poisons Unit. This was a rather sideways move. She wanted to take a regular 9-5 job with no nights or weekends as she thought it might help her fertility treatment to work. Oh, and it did. She was there, on the phone lines, dealing with all sorts of queries. Both accidental and intentional poisonings. And strangely it was also for pets. One man was upset because a rat was getting into Fluffy, his rabbit’s hutch. So, he put down warfarin as poison for the visiting rat, not realising the deleterious effect it would have on Fluffy. Carly was flabbergasted that people really could be that dense. This job culminated in Carly presenting a series of paediatric accidental methadone overdoses at a national conference. And being pregnant. Double whammy!

When she was pregnant, Carly did yoga at the Active Birth Centre in North London. She was keen to have as natural a birth as possible and felt yoga might help with that. They had one weekend for couples to explore birth with other pregnant women and their partners. Ades, her then husband, was excited to come along. The first exercise was to crawl around the floor, like an infant, and collect an article from a newspaper or a magazine from the floor that seemed to be of interest. He chose one about having no sleep. He suggested to the group that he thought paracetamol would help and he would be keen to give this to his baby. Whenever he cannot sleep, this is what he takes. Carly tries to explain about the placebo effect, but he shrugs and says he doesn’t want to know as it works for him. “Okey dokey”, says Carly. But doling out Calpol to a baby who won’t sleep, didn’t really go down too well with this rather politically correct and baby-front-and-centred group. Carly and Ades decided this was a last resort strategy. Their kids are now adults. They usually had medicines when they needed them and now seem healthy and not currently addicted to any drugs. Phew! Job well done feels Carly as a mother.Carly gives a number of talks about medicines at this stage in her career. She has several on her Dr Carly YouTube channel. One of her big bugbears is to promote shutting bathroom doors and keeping medicines in locked cabinets. Carly is perturbed by how many of her paediatric colleagues with young children don’t abide by these simple guidelines. But Carly cannot be too smug. When her daughter, Boo was two, she went for a sleepover with her friend Johnny. One of them had a sore finger and so they went off exploring to find some analgesia. They found paracetamol tablets in the bathroom and popped them out of the packet. They told Carly that they had posted them down the bath plug hole, but it wasn’t easy to see if this was true. Off they went to the Emergency Department to have levels checked. She should have believed them as these levels were indeed negative. But the treatment is simple, and the consequence of liver damage is severe. So, despite all Carly’s expert knowledge about drugs and poisons, one must always be vigilant…

Carly has been a passionate knitter for decades. She was taught, aged 11, by a school friend who had a house in Edgware, London with a green roof. Carly used to think that the roof was mouldy but in fact it was allegedly a design feature. ‘Allegedly’ is one of her relic words left over from her marriage to a lawyer, a marriage that lasted for nearly as long as her knitting journey. She thinks you use the unnecessary and over-the-top word ‘allegedly’ just to make a point. 

Well, the green tiles were just one thing she didn’t like about the roof. It also had very convex tiles. Pointy, sticky up ones. Now convex is a word open to interpretation. It depends on where you are viewing the roof from. For these tiles and this use of the word, Carly is imagining the tiles from the sky. The only way she can remember the difference between convex and concave, is that a cave is something you can wander into. Having concave tiles on the roof would be downright foolish as the water would collect in them, causing the tiles to disintegrate. “Ah ha”, mused Carly, then the colour and shape of all the roof tiles could be changed. She isn’t really sure what she has against these pointy, green tiles. Enough veering off topic and time to move back to the subject of knitting.

Carly has knitted everywhere and anywhere. She has been creative with making up her own patterns but mostly follows others. She loves to go on knitting holidays. Then, when you run out of things to say, there is always yarn and needles and patterns to discuss. And also, fellow knitters don’t take umbrage when you get to a tricky part of the pattern and need to desist from talking to concentrate on the job in hand. Carly has made some of her best friends on knitting holidays. Knitting is something to do together and she sees it as a gateway to having lots of fruitful and inspiring conversations. Sometimes these knitting  holidays were retreats where you enjoyed your own projects whilst chatting. And there were other holidays, which were in essence workshops, where you are made to do this, that and the other. These can be good for getting Carly out of her comfort zone. She once designed a most fabulous blue coat. It was a 3D patchwork design and was going to be super complicated to knit. Carly loved sourcing yarn for this project, by far the best bit. But the whole venture of the actual make became fraught with feelings of guilt and avoidance. “Carly,” she said to herself. This is a hobby. And so, you can say “No”. Carly felt very relieved when she did just that. The blue yarn could be salvaged for other, smaller, and less onerous knitting projects. 

The thing about knitting holidays is they could be very cliquey. Carly supposes if she were in the gang, then that would be fine! But she wasn’t always and there seemed to be a hierarchy on who was ‘in’ and who was ‘out’. It extended to which members were able to sit on the best and most comfortable seats. She loved the people who ran one such holiday near Poitiers in France. It was in a sumptuous chateau. The food was excellent and the booze plentiful. And, she liked some of the punters. And because a lot of these ladies knitted all day, every day, some – well most actually, were rather on the large side. Which meant getting the best seats was partly a necessity so you could actually fit on the sofa or chair.

Carly had been doing these trips to the French chateau for a while and decided it was time to broaden her horizons. She found out about a ‘Knit for World Harmony’ holiday in Jaipur, India. Oh, my goodness. Carly just loved India, and this would be her sixth trip. She would not be fazed by cows wandering about on the streets or spicy food and here was a chance to combine her hobby whilst doing some charitable work in a place she loved. It was to be workshop style, led by a famous London boho knitting designer. Carly was sooooooo excited.

Before she fully committed, she discussed it with her good friend Trudy from Mull in Scotland, who’d been the previous year. Trudy warned her. Carly would NOT like Lady Hoojumiflick who had set up the charity and ran these holidays and had been made a peer because of her charitable work. But Carly isn’t very good at taking advice and didn’t heed what Trudy had bravely suggested. Trudy knew that Carly wasn’t really going to listen, as Carly was so excited to be returning to India and felt she could handle every sort of person. Carly ended up flying on the same plane as Lady Hoojumiflick, who was of course flying out first class, and made it her business to navigate her way into cattle class to introduce herself to Carly. “I am Lady Hoojumiflick”, she said as she proffered her hand like someone in the royal family. “I presume you are Carly?”, who nodded and said she was indeed “Professor Fertleman”. “If we are going to be having a war of titles”, thought Carly, “I will give it my all”. Not a particularly auspicious start. 

They were all staying at the Amber Hotel in Jaipur, Rajasthan. It was a beautiful establishment on the outskirts of the city. It had sumptuous gardens where Carly could do her yoga. She found herself staying in one of the original rooms with inlaid mirrors and dark and heavy furniture. Carly was in heaven. Well, for the time being…

There were 15 women knitters, and a few had brought their husbands who liked birdwatching. All the couples had been before and loved staying at the wonderful Amber Hotel with its easy access to amazing lakes and wildlife sanctuaries. These couples were part of Lady Hoojumiflick’s in-crowd. She was patronising to staff in the extreme and would beckon them over by waving her arms wildly like a despotic ruler, whilst shouting rudely at them. She would eat at a separate table in the middle of the lawn and invite only her special cronies to eat with her. She had a white table with a lace tablecloth, comfy chairs and a parasol. The rest of the holiday participants were cast aside to a very functional and bland dining area. Carly tried to approach her once during a meal, but Lady Hoojumiflick waved her away, tutting. 

All the other women, those in couples and those not, were lovely. The birdie husbands were too. Carly had a blast whilst she was with them. The teacher was sublimely patient with everyone. Carly was most impressed. Lady Hoojumiflick certainly knew how to organise a wonderful holiday. “Thank you,” mumbled a moderately grateful Carly. She learnt a whole new slew of stitches. And kept copious notes and stuck all her samples in a notebook which was beyond fat at the end. To mirror the size of some of the knitters! Lady Hoojumiflick was far too busy with her charitable ventures to join the motley crew of knitters. Phew. Carly was greatly relieved. 

Carly was a bit dismayed with the food. It was fresh and delicious but for Indian food rather dull. She found out why. Lady Hoojumiflick ensured all the food was to her liking – very plain. But when her husband came out later, craving spicier food, she allowed the kitchen to make minuscule, bespoke portions of spicy food just for him. If there were any titbits left over, then, and only then, was Carly allowed to graze on them. Luckily for Carly, all the men, unlike their wives, were skinny, so Carly was usually successful in her quest for real Indian, spicy food.

Carly did some fabulous hiking expeditions with the more fit (slimmer) members of the group to various shrines and temples. One afternoon, Carly went to a sand museum, shell museum, railway museum and wax museum. As this holiday promoted itself as part of a charity, there was the inevitable trip to a couple of orphanages. It was billed as optional. But social pressure made it clear that they were NOT to be missed, so Carly steeled herself for the cringy visits. At each school, there was a dancing display, tour of the facilities as well as overwhelming and prolonged bouts of obsequiousness to Lady Hoojumiflick. But one of the schools had an excellent ethos. There was a very active pupil-led school council. They had learnt how to manage their finances and where savings could be made. Carly had, for a long time, thought that schools in the UK didn’t teach pupils how to live in the real world. How to manage your money, write a CV, even basic things like cooking and unblocking a drain would be far more useful than algebra and Latin declensions. 

Not long before Carly went on her ‘Knit for World Harmony’ holiday she decided to have a nose piercing. In her left nostril. Carly has done a survey. Nose piercings are nearly always in the left nostril. Carly didn’t have an explanation. It was something she had noted. And she was able to quickly clarify this by observing all the left nostril piercings in girls and women in Jaipur as most had them. 

She got the piercing done with her daughter Boo in Camden, London. Every time she twizzled it about, her nose ran. Whilst at the Amber Hotel, under instructions from her daughter, who had had them before, that it should now have made a permanent channel, she could change it to a smaller and prettier stud. So, she took it out. But oh no. She couldn’t replace it. Carly was so worried about it closing, she temporarily inserted a thin tapestry needle she had to hand and then switched it to an earring. But she only had long, dangly earrings which reached her mouth. Before leaving the Amber Hotel, to buy some studs she had to sacrifice the earring,  by snipping it. Eventually she found some studs to insert. Phew! Disaster averted…

Carly looks back on her ‘Knit for World Harmony’ holiday with a whole mixture of feelings. She came to the conclusion that when people are brave enough to challenge you, like Trudy did, she, Carly should listen to them…

Carly has grown up with myths about fire. The dominant one was “Those who play with fire, wet their beds!” Even as a paediatrician, Carly has not been able to determine if there is any truth in this myth. Certainly, this hasn’t happened to her. She is happy to light fires when making a BBQ and particularly likes to burn incense and tea lights to ‘ground’ herself. She finds physically igniting things using lighters is tricky and she regularly burns herself inadvertently. And, moreover, feels like she might be thought of as a smoker. Carly has never even learnt to smoke. So this is an association she finds abhorrent. She has been a campaigning anti-smoker for decades. At work, in the mess, not long after she qualified as a doctor, she led a movement to make the mess smoke-free. It was seen as quite revolutionary at the time. She smirks, as now smoking really isn’t allowed anywhere inside. Not even in cars, if you have a child with you. 

Carly often cycles around with her phone at-the-ready to photograph inconsiderate parents subjecting their children to passive smoke. Colleagues warn her against this as she is unprotected when on a bike. However, she is committed to helping anyone who has made a decision to quit smoking. Her father did it. Her son did it. And she is very prepared to have that conversation around the hospital when people are brazenly smoking next to the NO SMOKING signs. 

But this story is about matches, and not an anti-smoking tirade. We have established Carly is not keen on using lighters. Mostly because she burns herself when trying to obtain a flame. But more because matches are nice and old-fashioned. She remembers fondly the match-seller in Oliver. “Who will buy…” Oh no. Carly’s memory is shot to pieces. It is actually “Who will buy my sweet, red roses?” 

Any day, she would prefer a box of matches. There is something comforting in them. Short, long, but pretty much dependable, unless the side of the box where you strike the matches has worn off. But these are only on her very favourite matchboxes. Especially as Carly has taken to refilling them with standard matches from large, utilitarian boxes. She only really keeps matchboxes she has bought in Greece. More recently she bought some signature boxes from Mexico. They have wonderful vibrant emerald-green tips. But the wooden part of the match is so thin and bendy. And yet again, Carly is prone to burning her fingers. 

Mostly, she lights the tea lights next to her bed. They sit on small velvet square samples you can get for free from various sofa bed places. When she visited her friend Melinda in Manchester, they often went there with the purpose of pretending to look for sofas, but really to collect these sumptuous squares. Carly would like to make a quilt, but that is probably a bit cheeky. Not that it has stopped her in the past… 

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm” thinks Carly, “An idea?” Unfortunately, Melinda has dropped Carly as a friend. She felt that Carly was not sympathetic enough when she was ill. Carly feels guilty about this but always does find it hard to be overly caring when a friend has a psychosomatic illness. Anyway, Carly has the lovely squares to remember her and has made new friends instead. Besides the tea lights, Carly often has candles she lights that she made herself. In old-fashioned teacups. She learnt this on a course and uses soya wax as it is less carcinogenic. She has a box of small bottles with different essential oils to add wonderful fragrances to the candles. Mostly she makes them lilac in colour and adds in lavender flowers with the matching scent. She often lights one tall taper as well. In a pretty bottle that once contained wine or a spirit. But you must be careful to blow them out before falling asleep. 

She vividly remembers a fire in her flat in Tel Aviv caused by dodgy candlesticks which melted. Her entire family woke up covered in smoke. The wiring in the building directed the night porter to the wrong floor. They were on the 14^th, and he thought the fire was on the 7^th. Unreliable wiring by a factor of two. Carly later found out that this wasn’t the only fire caused by these candlesticks. Unsurprisingly, the company that made them went out of business in the end. Carly would like to have said to herself “Good job” but actually she was sad as she loved how pretty they were. Just not made for candles. Her children loved fires. Planned ones, anyway!

Every summer, Carly’s children would stay with their favourite babysitters in Poland. And each time they set up a huge bonfire, coated themselves in protective water and would then jump through it. But Carly had to put a stop to this when her oldest son’s armpits caught fire. Even this was too much for Carly to condone. 

Instead, she encourages everyone to burn incense, as this is safer but still enjoyable. She once went to a market whilst on a knitting holiday in Mysore, India, and helped make some sticks. It was really just a ruse to ensure she bought lots of them from the stallholder. But it really was fun. She rarely goes anywhere without her trusty incense burner and sticks. Recently she succumbed to an advert on YouTube and bought a special incense burner called a spirulina. The cone-shaped incense had a hole in the middle and the smoke released tumbled down the device a bit like running down a steep slope with switchbacks. 

Bringing herself back to matches. Carly’s current favourite ones (as she has already mentioned) she buys in Greece. Mostly because you can collect different characters on them. They are hilarious and based on Asian shadow puppets. Carly fondly remembers seeing a number of shadow puppet plays in Java, Indonesia. She went there with her new boyfriend, Ades. He became her old boyfriend, then fiancé, then husband and now he is her newly remarried ex-husband. Hey ho!

Regarding the characters on the Greek matchboxes, Carly finds out the main protagonist is a fellow called Karagiozis, meaning ‘dark eye’. He was very popular because of his scatological language and protruding phallus. Carly had done some investigation into this Karagiozis character. She knew what the word phallus meant. Most people do. But scatological? What on earth is that? Oh, it is an obsession with excrement. Great, thought Carly. Now, not quite such a loveable rogue anymore. She delves into Karagiozis, and he is usually depicted as a poor hunchbacked Greek, his right arm is always depicted long, his clothes are ragged and patched, and his feet are always bare. Because of his poverty and laziness, Karagiozis uses mischievous ways to get money to feed his family. He lives in a cottage with his wife Aglaia (who constantly nags him from inside their cottage) and his three sons (known collectively as Kollitiria) during the time of the Ottoman Empire. 

Carly feels some sympathy for Aglaia, who has a husband who only lives to eat and sleep. “What can she do other than nag?”, questions Carly. Hadjiavatis is Karagiozis’ childhood friend and sidekick, an honest and serious figure, who often ends up unwittingly being wrapped up in Karagiozis’ schemes. Barba Yorgos (Uncle George) is a sturdily built dairy farmer who wears the traditional kilt. Despite knowing Karagiozis is a crook, he sometimes helps him out, beating opponents black and blue with his staff. Carly is a little sad as she had previously seen Barba George on matchboxes, but she hadn’t started her collection at that time. Since then it has eluded her. The minor characters include Stavrakas who has only one overly long independent arm, Sior Dionysios, an Italian gentleman who pretends to be a nobleman, Morfonios, is both vain and ugly with a huge head and bulbous nose; still, he considers himself to be handsome and keeps falling in love. He often shouts out a sound like ‘whit’ Carly loves this as she works at a hospital locally known at The Whit. She wonders what this exclamation noise sounds like. 

Finally, there is even a Jew, Solomon, from Thessaloniki. Carly is delighted that it isn’t Solomon who has the large nose following age-old antisemitic stereotypes. The Visier announces trials, deeds or tests to which Karagiozis usually decides to become involved and Fatme is his beautiful daughter playing either obedient roles or rebellious ones. 

Carly finds out there are a number of myths about how Karagiozis seems to have come to Greece. Some say it was during Ottoman rule for the entertainment of the sultan, whilst others say that Greek merchants brought him and his legends from China. Furthermore, Carly discovered that ‘The Legends’ are divided in two major categories: the ‘Heroics’ and the ‘Comedies’. A bit like Shakespeare, thinks Carly. The tales are wonderfully formulaic, have audience participation and usually have the following layout.

Karagiozis appears with his three sons dancing and singing. He welcomes the audience and holds a comical dialogue with his children. He then announces the title of the episode and enters his cottage. The Vizier meets Hadjiavatis and reports that he has a problem and needs someone to perform a deed. Karagiozis hears about it and decides it is an opportunity to gain money.  The regular characters appear one at a time in the scene, Karagiozis has a funny dialogue with them, mocks them, fools them, or becomes annoyed and ousts them violently. Finally, Karagiozis is either rewarded by the Vizier or if his mischief is revealed he is punished. 

Carly notes that Karagiozis will often take on roles inappropriately. He certainly doesn’t seem to suffer from imposter syndrome as he can be seen variously as a doctor, cook, senator, scholar, and fisherman. And then he appears with gorillas and ghosts when he surely cannot have seen either.

Carly has learnt so much from her investigations into Karagiozis inspired by her matchbox collection. Or is it an obsession? Really it is mind-blowing. 

Carly has grown up with myths about fire. The dominant one was “Those who play with fire, wet their beds!” Even as a paediatrician, Carly has not been able to determine if there is any truth in this myth. Certainly, this hasn’t happened to her. She is happy to light fires when making a BBQ and particularly likes to burn incense and tea lights to ‘ground’ herself. She finds physically igniting things using lighters is tricky and she regularly burns herself inadvertently. And, moreover, feels like she might be thought of as a smoker. Carly has never even learnt to smoke. So this is an association she finds abhorrent. She has been a campaigning anti-smoker for decades. At work, in the mess, not long after she qualified as a doctor, she led a movement to make the mess smoke-free. It was seen as quite revolutionary at the time. She smirks, as now smoking really isn’t allowed anywhere inside. Not even in cars, if you have a child with you. 

Carly often cycles around with her phone at-the-ready to photograph inconsiderate parents subjecting their children to passive smoke. Colleagues warn her against this as she is unprotected when on a bike. However, she is committed to helping anyone who has made a decision to quit smoking. Her father did it. Her son did it. And she is very prepared to have that conversation around the hospital when people are brazenly smoking next to the NO SMOKING signs. 

But this story is about matches, and not an anti-smoking tirade. We have established Carly is not keen on using lighters. Mostly because she burns herself when trying to obtain a flame. But more because matches are nice and old-fashioned. She remembers fondly the match-seller in Oliver. “Who will buy…” Oh no. Carly’s memory is shot to pieces. It is actually “Who will buy my sweet, red roses?” 

Any day, she would prefer a box of matches. There is something comforting in them. Short, long, but pretty much dependable, unless the side of the box where you strike the matches has worn off. But these are only on her very favourite matchboxes. Especially as Carly has taken to refilling them with standard matches from large, utilitarian boxes. She only really keeps matchboxes she has bought in Greece. More recently she bought some signature boxes from Mexico. They have wonderful vibrant emerald-green tips. But the wooden part of the match is so thin and bendy. And yet again, Carly is prone to burning her fingers. 

Mostly, she lights the tea lights next to her bed. They sit on small velvet square samples you can get for free from various sofa bed places. When she visited her friend Melinda in Manchester, they often went there with the purpose of pretending to look for sofas, but really to collect these sumptuous squares. Carly would like to make a quilt, but that is probably a bit cheeky. Not that it has stopped her in the past… 

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm” thinks Carly, “An idea?” Unfortunately, Melinda has dropped Carly as a friend. She felt that Carly was not sympathetic enough when she was ill. Carly feels guilty about this but always does find it hard to be overly caring when a friend has a psychosomatic illness. Anyway, Carly has the lovely squares to remember her and has made new friends instead. Besides the tea lights, Carly often has candles she lights that she made herself. In old-fashioned teacups. She learnt this on a course and uses soya wax as it is less carcinogenic. She has a box of small bottles with different essential oils to add wonderful fragrances to the candles. Mostly she makes them lilac in colour and adds in lavender flowers with the matching scent. She often lights one tall taper as well. In a pretty bottle that once contained wine or a spirit. But you must be careful to blow them out before falling asleep. 

She vividly remembers a fire in her flat in Tel Aviv caused by dodgy candlesticks which melted. Her entire family woke up covered in smoke. The wiring in the building directed the night porter to the wrong floor. They were on the 14^th, and he thought the fire was on the 7^th. Unreliable wiring by a factor of two. Carly later found out that this wasn’t the only fire caused by these candlesticks. Unsurprisingly, the company that made them went out of business in the end. Carly would like to have said to herself “Good job” but actually she was sad as she loved how pretty they were. Just not made for candles. Her children loved fires. Planned ones, anyway!

Every summer, Carly’s children would stay with their favourite babysitters in Poland. And each time they set up a huge bonfire, coated themselves in protective water and would then jump through it. But Carly had to put a stop to this when her oldest son’s armpits caught fire. Even this was too much for Carly to condone. 

Instead, she encourages everyone to burn incense, as this is safer but still enjoyable. She once went to a market whilst on a knitting holiday in Mysore, India, and helped make some sticks. It was really just a ruse to ensure she bought lots of them from the stallholder. But it really was fun. She rarely goes anywhere without her trusty incense burner and sticks. Recently she succumbed to an advert on YouTube and bought a special incense burner called a spirulina. The cone-shaped incense had a hole in the middle and the smoke released tumbled down the device a bit like running down a steep slope with switchbacks. 

Bringing herself back to matches. Carly’s current favourite ones (as she has already mentioned) she buys in Greece. Mostly because you can collect different characters on them. They are hilarious and based on Asian shadow puppets. Carly fondly remembers seeing a number of shadow puppet plays in Java, Indonesia. She went there with her new boyfriend, Ades. He became her old boyfriend, then fiancé, then husband and now he is her newly remarried ex-husband. Hey ho!

Regarding the characters on the Greek matchboxes, Carly finds out the main protagonist is a fellow called Karagiozis, meaning ‘dark eye’. He was very popular because of his scatological language and protruding phallus. Carly had done some investigation into this Karagiozis character. She knew what the word phallus meant. Most people do. But scatological? What on earth is that? Oh, it is an obsession with excrement. Great, thought Carly. Now, not quite such a loveable rogue anymore. She delves into Karagiozis, and he is usually depicted as a poor hunchbacked Greek, his right arm is always depicted long, his clothes are ragged and patched, and his feet are always bare. Because of his poverty and laziness, Karagiozis uses mischievous ways to get money to feed his family. He lives in a cottage with his wife Aglaia (who constantly nags him from inside their cottage) and his three sons (known collectively as Kollitiria) during the time of the Ottoman Empire. 

Carly feels some sympathy for Aglaia, who has a husband who only lives to eat and sleep. “What can she do other than nag?”, questions Carly. Hadjiavatis is Karagiozis’ childhood friend and sidekick, an honest and serious figure, who often ends up unwittingly being wrapped up in Karagiozis’ schemes. Barba Yorgos (Uncle George) is a sturdily built dairy farmer who wears the traditional kilt. Despite knowing Karagiozis is a crook, he sometimes helps him out, beating opponents black and blue with his staff. Carly is a little sad as she had previously seen Barba George on matchboxes, but she hadn’t started her collection at that time. Since then it has eluded her. The minor characters include Stavrakas who has only one overly long independent arm, Sior Dionysios, an Italian gentleman who pretends to be a nobleman, Morfonios, is both vain and ugly with a huge head and bulbous nose; still, he considers himself to be handsome and keeps falling in love. He often shouts out a sound like ‘whit’ Carly loves this as she works at a hospital locally known at The Whit. She wonders what this exclamation noise sounds like. 

Finally, there is even a Jew, Solomon, from Thessaloniki. Carly is delighted that it isn’t Solomon who has the large nose following age-old antisemitic stereotypes. The Visier announces trials, deeds or tests to which Karagiozis usually decides to become involved and Fatme is his beautiful daughter playing either obedient roles or rebellious ones. 

Carly finds out there are a number of myths about how Karagiozis seems to have come to Greece. Some say it was during Ottoman rule for the entertainment of the sultan, whilst others say that Greek merchants brought him and his legends from China. Furthermore, Carly discovered that ‘The Legends’ are divided in two major categories: the ‘Heroics’ and the ‘Comedies’. A bit like Shakespeare, thinks Carly. The tales are wonderfully formulaic, have audience participation and usually have the following layout.

Karagiozis appears with his three sons dancing and singing. He welcomes the audience and holds a comical dialogue with his children. He then announces the title of the episode and enters his cottage. The Vizier meets Hadjiavatis and reports that he has a problem and needs someone to perform a deed. Karagiozis hears about it and decides it is an opportunity to gain money.  The regular characters appear one at a time in the scene, Karagiozis has a funny dialogue with them, mocks them, fools them, or becomes annoyed and ousts them violently. Finally, Karagiozis is either rewarded by the Vizier or if his mischief is revealed he is punished. 

Carly notes that Karagiozis will often take on roles inappropriately. He certainly doesn’t seem to suffer from imposter syndrome as he can be seen variously as a doctor, cook, senator, scholar, and fisherman. And then he appears with gorillas and ghosts when he surely cannot have seen either.

Carly has learnt so much from her investigations into Karagiozis inspired by her matchbox collection. Or is it an obsession? Really it is mind-blowing. 

Well, actually, it is mutual. Boofy is her father’s slightly older first cousin. He must have been a loveable rogue right from the outset. His real name is Norman, but he was a great, big, round ‘buffale’ of a child and always known to family and friends as Boofy. Carly suspected that when he was working, he didn’t use this nickname. The problem with nicknames is that you have to explain them to people. Carly currently works with a girl named Mouse. Her real name is Alice and she loves Carly’s puppy Talulah. Mouse has told Carly how she got her name, but Carly isn’t very good at trivia, so she remembers to call her Mouse, as that’s what she prefers. When sending her an email, though, Carly needs to remember her real name. What Carly does know is that Mouse is that she is anything but mousey. She is strong and firm and wonderful. She considers her own current nickname: Carly. Her daughter Boo isn’t into calling her Mum, Mummy or Mother. Rather she uses her given name and then by a series of jumps, changes it. At the moment, Boo calls her Carl Jung. When Carly changed her name, Boo would call her ‘Big Carl’ and at that time this was the name of the largest crane in the UK. It might then turn into ‘Nig Narl’ which rhymes.

Boo liked to confuse people by switching genders. She called Gus (short for Asparagus) their male cat Miss Kitty and this was very confusing. Talulah has now morphed into Sue Ellen  like a name from Dallas. At least it’s the same gender. Talulah became Lulah, then Lula, then Luellen and finally Sue Ellen. Carly isn’t thrilled about this. Talulah’s name was chosen by consensus. She worries the poor dog might have a complex, not to mention fear of becoming a character on an American soap. As always with these stories, Carly runs off on a trajectory unrelated to the title. Back to Boofy…

Boofy grew up in England and still keeps in touch with some of his school friends. Boofy is in his 90s so not all of them are alive. But Carly is always impressed that people can hold onto friends for so very long. She does have a few friends she sees from primary school when she was mostly Fert. So, she does get it. After having two daughters, Boofy moved with his family to Israel. There, he practised as an English lawyer, representing some potentially dodgy characters. He and his wife Anne went on to have one more daughter and a son. They had a large flat in Ramat Gan, near to Tel Aviv and whenever Carly went to Israel, Boofy was the person she would always stay with. Even her children have stayed with him and so have all her siblings. It was an ‘open house’ in that Ramat Gan flat. Boofy was always a live and let live person and wouldn’t mind how religious you were as long as you were respectful. There were a whole load of waifs and strays who would stay in Ramat Gan when things weren’t in a good place personally for these guests. That was Boofy’s strength. He was non-judgmental and welcoming.

One time, Boofy was in England with his 12-year-old identical twin granddaughters. Carly decided a nice English adventure would be just the ticket. So Boofy, the twins, her son Haz and his friend Edgar set off for the journey of a lifetime. No! This, as usual with Carly, is a ridiculous exaggeration. They went to Mountfitchet Castle near Audley End in Cambridgeshire. It was a very odd place, not owned by English Heritage or the National Trust, – Carly was a member of both bodies at this time. These memberships, along with lots of art galleries and other organisations that Carly loved to support such as Art Fund, were all kiboshed during the divorce. Carly really had to reign in her spend and these felt rather expensive and frivolous. Anyway, at this castle, with her motley crew of children and adults, she had to pay full whack. But it was worth it for sure. Besides a homestead with sheep and some other forgettable farm animals(goats/ducks/chickens) there was a whole castle to explore. It was set up like Norman times in the midst of the winter. All the mannequins were covered head to toe in animal fat, leathers and furs, wool and fleece undertaking the sort of work that they would have done in the Middle Ages. Spinning and weaving, milling and cooking as well as drawing water from wells and tending to fires. The number of tedious jobs was endless. And it seemed quite smelly to be alive then. Certainly, these pretend people stank. Carly thoroughly enjoyed it, as did her party of kids and adults. She wonders if they still remember it as vividly as she does. The brown, greasy facial wrinkles haunt her like a recurring nightmare when she thinks back. But, it’s still better for her to be alive nowadays than it would have been back then. 

Carly often wonders if now is the best time to be alive. She realises that people see Victorians or Georgians through rose-tinted spectacles. Of course, being rich and riding around on horses and having lots of tea parties and playing cards would be lovely. Certainly, it would get boring and on your nerves after a while. And for the vast majority of the population, you were hungry, cold, tired and tied to a repetitive job for most of your life. As a woman you could almost guarantee that most of your children would die. All that carrying around babies in your womb and still not being able to provide assurance they would be around to look after you in your later years. Carly has made it very clear to her own children. She does not want to be giving them any more money now. Their father can do that. But as she plans to live a long life, she will use her savings wisely and leave little for them in her will. Equally she does not want to be a financial burden on them. They have had all their education sorted out, bar a very small loan to pay back to the government. The rest they need to do for themselves. None of this Ma and Pa will buy you a car/house/horse etc. They must have their own drive and ambition. Spoon-feeding and helicoptering are well and truly over as they are all in their 20s. 

Yet again. Carly’s pontificating and going off track. Whenever Carly is in Israel, she always sees Boofy. He is still driving in his 90s. And it is a crap old banger. They once ate somewhere and Boofy left the keys in the ignition for a few hours. No one saw fit to steal it. Carly thinks Boofy does that quite often to be an inverted snob and proud of his car being so crap, that no one is interested in it for themselves or to sell on. Boofy is full of stories of family and also so well-read, that there is never a dull moment. He is vicariously proud of his eldest daughter who has 10 children. Yes, that is a lot. But the fun fact is that she had them in order; girl/boy/girl/boy etc all the way down to that last boy. Carly tries to do the maths and work out the chances of this happening. Something like one in two to the power 10. Never mind…

But really Carly loves to sink into that abundant love and admiration Boofy has for her. It surrounds her and envelopes her but never suffocates her. That is quite something for someone else to get it just right. Once Carly needed to go to her old flat to retrieve some of her goods. This was not long after she had painfully separated from her husband Ades. Not only did Boofy offer to drive her there but also offered to accompany her to collect the bits and bobs and smooth the way. 

When she got there Carly took a big bag. Most of this flat screamed Carly. Everything was lime green and fuchsia pink. She had either commissioned, designed or made most of the decorative items. But in the end Carly only took a few objects. A ‘clanger’ a friend had knitted, her sewing box and some wooden dolls based on her knitting friends who’d come over for a week of sun, sea and yarn a few years before. She looked sadly at an old man and woman. Carly had bought them to show Ades how they would grow old together. The woman was knitting, and the man was reading a paper with a small dog at his feet. She put them in her bag. Then she took them out. And left them there. He could look at those over the coming years. He wouldn’t throw them away. Carly knew that. He never could make decisions to do any clearing out. That was why he had an enormous ‘gimp’ cupboard in his new flat in London. To store more stuff than anyone could ever need.

Boofy also spoke uninvited at Carly and Ades’ wedding in 1991. He wasn’t the only one. Carly’s father spoke twice and her uncle once. Other people put flyers on the chairs about a left-wing Zionist organisation. Carly’s mother is still furious about that. But Boofy’s speech was rather risky. He decided to show off that he was cleverer than the rabbi. Oh dear. Embarrassing or what? Carly is much more furious that her father spoke twice and his brother once too. It is always the food and the speeches that people remember about weddings. Too many rubbish or risqué speeches. Or crap food. Carly remembers her brother’s wedding. If you ask anyone about his speech, he took the mickey out of their mother for being a snob and pretending she grew up in a posher neighbourhood than she did. Carly made a very important note to self not to do that when she spoke at her son’s wedding recently. All the speeches were great, as was the food. Phew, we all can learn.

During the pandemic Carly didn’t get to see Boofy for a few years. But he dialled in regularly to the zoom quiz her father did every Sunday. This was in lieu of the one he usually did at his synagogue with all his cronies in person. This quiz was the highlight of her father’s week. He spent most of the week preparing for it with dedication and this meant Carly’s parents managed lockdown with their own projects and not getting on each other’s nerves too much. 

Carly is delighted to be moving to Israel soon and can then catch up regularly with Boofy. She does wonder what she will do without him. But he hasn’t given up the ghost yet. Not something to think about right now, Carly reassures herself!

Carly has a whole long list of where she doesn’t feel she fits in. It is probably more with whom she doesn’t fit rather than where, when, how or why. It is always about human relationships and her eternal quest to seek out love. She realises that there are many types of love. She thinks about filial love for a moment. She likes the word ‘filial’. It sounds like you could love horses but that is her confusion with the word for a young mare (a filly).

And she likes her siblings, their partners and often their children. Is this filial love different from familial love? So off she heads to a dictionary and looks it up. Oh, rubbish. It is Google she turns to! Filial love is mostly defined as love of a child for their parents. Yup, she has lots of that. And it is both ways. But whether it is filial or familial is a semantic difference. She does feel now that she is the only divorced one of her siblings, her parents’ siblings and most (but not all) of her first cousins. She isn’t quite sure why she is still hung up on being divorced. But she is. Oh yes, she has done her therapy, mindfulness and shamanic journeys to ask these questions. But she still has to come to terms with feeling different from her family. 

Then she has an internal dialogue and supposes “What if?” No, she didn’t choose them to be her siblings or her cousins. And certainly, she didn’t have anything to do with their partners. Nor, obviously, they, her. She is probably overthinking it. Too much time in her head. Too many thoughts rushing around at breakneck speed competing with other thoughts. It doesn’t matter how forceful Carly is with keeping these irritating thoughts in abeyance. Up they pop! And boy, Carly doesn’t like this state of being. That is she is NOT in control. She will just have to submit and make the best of all this whizzing around of these thoughts. 

Recently she learnt some very interesting facts. So much so, she even bothered to enter them into her Continuing Professional Development diary for work. She learnt your brain is 2% of the weight of your body but is an energy guzzler. Using up 20% of all your kilojoules. And we make 3,000 decisions a day. For real? Luckily, she doesn’t have that much time to record them. 

But let’s consider the steps and decisions in making a cup of herbal tea. Carly starts off with that every morning. Shall she get out of bed? Even this isn’t binary. Is it too early? Will she go and let out Talulah? Will the cats all-of-a-sudden become utterly ravenous to petition her for food because really, they are so starving, they might actually die from lack of food? This she ponders is unlikely as they are ginormous. So, when she finally makes that decision, she hops up from her bed. She takes the water in the carafe with her to fill up the kettle. Flip the switch on. Did the orange light come on signalling the kettle is in boil mode before she can actually hear the kettle? 

Then open the drawer. To get the beautiful mug she bought from a potter in the wonderful spread-out Oslo Craft Museum. She spots a few bits of limescale at the bottom. Should she wash this cup out? No, she will donate these specs and the few drops of yesterday’s tea into the cheese plant. She got that by grumbling to the estate agent who usually only gives them to new homeowners – not lower cast renters like Carly. Oh, back to the tea. Use yesterday’s tea bag? Well, is that day four or five of use? Well one more time should surely be fine. Oh, and as she removed the bag and its little special saucer, she saw her old lady lilac enormous multivitamins. Best take one of those. 

Oh, and as it is the season of spring with its tree pollen allergens flying around, so she’d best take a minuscule 10mg non-sedating antihistamine. She definitely needs to be awake and fully in control of her senses on her cycle across London at breakneck speed. 

Gosh loads of decisions and even more random thoughts before she has even poured the boiling water into her cup. So maybe 3,000 decisions might be underestimating it. As for the thoughts, that is a huge number. It is disputed. On the ‘Love Brain’ course they said 70,000 thoughts per day, and you have them when you are asleep. But others think it is 20,000. Carly is sure that whatever the number for the average human being she has more. But how on earth can you measure that anyway? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

But back to the title of this story. So, when does Carly feel she does not fit in? Certainly, with groups of doctors who all go off after the ward round for a group coffee and the midday huddle (never to be moved or beware the matron’s wrath) for group lunch. Carly feels she gives them her all at the board round and they will have had their fill of Carly. The board round is when doctors on duty and one nurse handover before seeing patients at the start of the attending day. Carly encourages everyone to introduce themselves and say a fun fact. This has to be voluntary. Usually, people join in. During her last ever attending week in late May 2023 Carly asked for everyone’s favourite shapes on Monday, what they had had for breakfast on Wednesday, their podcast recommendations on Thursday and what they had decided to do about their own death on Friday. For the well-attended Tuesday ward round when all of her consultant colleagues came, she suggested (no, actually she mandated) that they all wear something purple without exception. Word had spread and so the room was heaving that Tuesday with standing room only. This was going to be her last ever attending week on the ward.

Carly herself had planned to wear a lilac wig. But things got in the way. On her way to Archway from Walthamstow on her new (5^th as all predecessors had been stolen – urgggghhhh) trusty e-Brompton she had another flat front tyre. Oh no. She had only had another one repaired six days previously. But never mind. She could walk through a park to South Tottenham station and get the Goblin to work. She loved that name. Her very good friend and ex-step-sister-in-law had called it that. Gospel Oak to Barking Line. So, Goblin it became, for Carly. Maybe it should be written GoBLin.

That day Carly was planning to go for a swim before work. And was all ready in her purple (obviously) costume. But she ran out of time as she had to take the train with her poorly bike. But, what the hell. She decided she was only amongst colleagues. So, she removed all her clothes for the board round apart from the swimsuit and put on her wig. Of course, it got everyone’s attention. And lots of people took photos and videos and she could still be serious and lead the goings on. When she saw the recordings later, she was a teensy bit upset that there was so much cellulite on show. Just before they left the seminar room to see the patients, one of her more sensible colleagues (probably they all were) entrusted, to three named individuals, that Carly could only see patients fully attired. Shame, shame thought Carly – no sense of adventure.

So, you can see why Carly thought that everyone in the team would have had enough of her extreme extroversion and not want her to spend time with them having mediocre NHS coffee and an expensive but middling lunch. 

There are a number of other situations where Carly doesn’t feel she really fits in. She has never been keen on pubs. Even if they are ‘no-smoking’ now. Carly often has to go with groups of work colleagues to celebrate something. Usually someone’s leaving. But Carly often gets stuck sitting next to someone she doesn’t know nor cares to get to know. She often uses the excuse of her puppy to leave. Now she knows why her parents had a dog. It was their get-out-of-jail card.

She also doesn’t really fit in with other dog owners in the park who all seem to know each other and at least their dog’s names. This is because they all go to the same park at the same time. But there is a dearth of parks near where Carly lives, so she and Talulah are park hoppers. Recently in St James’ Park (not the posh one near Buckingham Palace but a more salubrious one in Walthamstow) she met a dog called Dixie and his owner Douggie. Finally, Carly felt she could start to have a group of doggy owner friends. But she didn’t know that Dixie was an extreme digger of a dog. He was only too happy to pass on these skills to Talulah who was a quick learner. Once back home Talulah was all paws and displaying her skills to a dangerous extent in Carly’s back yard. But Carly’s ‘garden’ had minuscule amounts of mud by the two side fences. And because she had a dog flap, when home, you could never tell whether Talulah was crashing through the flap to do her business or to dig. Either way, it was some mess for poor old Carly to clear up.

She also doesn’t fit in with others who are dating because they’re doing it too little, too much, not seriously enough or too seriously. It is all relative, muses Carly. She is nervous around other divorcees in case they get partnered much faster than Carly because life is one great big competition. Anyway, does she even want a partner?

For sure she does not fit in with scientists; that was a past life and she really isn’t one now. She was pretty hopeless at doing science at the time and only filled up a quarter of a laboratory book. Thank goodness her professor never knew… And as for medical educators who all have teaching theory degrees – what a waste of time. She was fine as a teacher without one. She has even been invited onto the panel of a balloon debate to fight this corner. 

There are some instances when she may or may not fit in. This is mostly when she is with other creatives as she still sees herself as a doctor really. But not for much longer. And Carly feels uncomfortable with people who are in awe of her. But she also quite likes it. Being famous. Well not really famous but has written a book that many parents have. Oh dear. Ambivalence. Here we go again…

There are places and with people she absolutely does fit in. When she goes to Death Café meetings, when she goes on her very special yoga and writing retreats in Lemnaradis, Greece, and when she is socialising with one other person, so they give her their full attention and she them. She can be comfortable with her parents if they are going out with her to Archie’s in Archway for lunch and also with her kids. Even if her kids wittingly conspire with each other to communally take the piss out of Carly…

And of course, she is happy to spend time alone, especially if coffee from an independent café is involved. And to be honest – who wants to fit in anyway?

Carly met Sandra in a chateau between St Jean D’Angely, Saintes, and Cognac. It was on a knitting holiday in the French countryside. That was in 2008, and Carly was not even called Carly then. She was firmly Caroline. They have been firm friends ever since. Especially as they went through divorces pretty much simultaneously. They had been on many more knitting holidays since then with other friends; to France, Scotland and Israel. But their friendship really flourished during lockdown. Carly has that nifty Trainline app to book her rail travel. So, it is easy to work out how many times she has been to Long Buckby since late 2020. 19 times. Sometimes even twice a month. But usually not quite as often as that. They have their customs and rituals. More recently, Talulah, the puppy, has come to be part of that routine. Friends are often bemused that Carly has been there so many times. “Where even is Long Buckby?” they ask. But it is less about Long Buckby and more about her friendship with Sandra and supporting each other during the lonely times of lockdown. Sometimes, Carly would have to sneak into the house in the dead of night, so that no nosy neighbours would report either of them. Not everyone had such a loose and changeable definition of a ‘Covid social bubble’ as Carly. And always best to avoid Sandra’s annoying neighbour who is forever in the garden fattening up the local birds with far too much food.

The train to Long Buckby is direct from Euston. And pretty fast, but Carly never really understands why it has to stop in Northampton for 20 minutes. In the middle of the journey. It is always planned and really tedious. But there are no changes, and it is only just over an hour. So, Carly will suffer that waste-of-time bit in the middle.

Usually, but not always, Sandra drives to the station to pick Carly up. She tries to travel light, but when, aghast, Sandra did not have any feather pillows, half of her luggage was a pillow. Now Carly has bought Sandra two, so she and other guests can enjoy these superior pillows. They go for the same walk every evening via the duck pond. And in December they rate all the Christmas decorations of houses they pass into various categories of ‘naffness’. It is just incredible, not only what people will spend, but the depths of depravity totally uncool households will run to. Blow-up Santas that need generators to keep them topped up. Whole gardens representing the nativity scene with donkeys, kings, baby Jesuses and an assortment of other random and unconnected animals. It seemed every house in the village had fairy lights. Sandra only had some very tasteful decorations that Carly totally approved of. Lucky that Sandra is so stylish, or Carly might have to tell her a thing or two.

If possible, they would start the day with a lovely coffee in bespoke mugs. The shop ‘Born and Bread’ kept them just for the two of them. And sometimes, when they thought no one was watching them, they would just have to sample the creamy patisserie range. Shhhhhhhhhhhh. And they would burn off some of the calories with frantic knitting. Carly and Sandra laugh at this. No amount of speed-knitting will make any headway into these calories. They are not knitting on the run. Or skiing whilst crocheting. They are sitting down, putting the world to rights, whilst clickety clacking away. They often do this in the evenings with large goblets of sumptuous luxury gin and bespoke tonic water.

Carly would often go midweek when Sandra was working online with clients. Carly would find it difficult not to put notes under the door to distract Sandra from the serious business of running workshops, teaching her service-users (what a dreadful term muses Carly) various mindfulness techniques. Sandra mostly did the cooking, and it was fish pie if Carly was given a choice. And Carly would go to the local Co-op to fill up on Vino Blanco. As a special treat they might pop into one of the two local Indian eateries. Carly would also help by doing the washing up if she could. And annoying Sandra by putting any metal objects on the magnetic knife rack by the back door. Including keys, knives, spoons and whisks. Sandra did not use this useful gadget as she felt burglars might help themselves to sharp and dangerous implements when they broke in via the back door. Carly would roll her eyes. Long Buckby isn’t that sort of place. But Sandra was rather risk averse and turned off all the sockets (apart from the fridge) before she went to bed. Sigh, sigh, Carly thought to herself. Are there really housefires nowadays from sockets? Highly unlikely. And Carly is not at all risk averse. Shame, Sandra is a bit…

Both Sandra and Carly are avid readers. But Carly just doesn’t understand why Sandra isn’t so into the knitting fiction books she loves. They both know knitting is so good for their mental health. But only Carly reads Debbie Macomber and Rachael Herron. These are easy and light reads. Always with a happy ending. Just what Carly likes when she isn’t reading historical romantic fiction. 

And whilst Sandra and Carly have lots in common, only Sandra is obsessed with plants. Carly had a love affair with tradescantia during lockdown, but Sandra is the real ‘Plant McCoy’. She has a well-stocked garden, a small greenhouse for seedlings in her lean-to, and an allotment. Sandra brings her plants in and out, day and night. She really cares for them. But unfortunately, the baobab tree Carly brought her from Senegal isn’t doing so well. This isn’t surprising when you consider the difference in climate between West Africa and the Midlands. But it’s not dead yet. And if it’s not dead yet, maybe, just maybe, it might thrive.

Sandra likes dogs and had several for many years. And so, she was up for Talulah staying. At first, she had to get a crate, but lately Talulah slept downstairs. When she first went there was a number two in the living room. The last time Carly was quite relaxed as Talulah was thoroughly toilet trained. Or was she? When Carly went to bed her feet seemed damp, and Talulah had marked her bed (the one with the top-notch feather pillows) with a long wet wee. Carly was too embarrassed to tell Sandra and so she slept in the bed, nonetheless. She is rarely ashamed about anything, but she was in this case. Sandra was totally non-plussed and was happy to help Carly wash all the soggy and smelly bedding the next morning.

Sandra and Carly have even more in common. Their oldest sons are both maths boffins and work in finance. And both their ex-husbands are with new partners. Surprise. All the men they know seem to get into new relationships the moment the previous one is concluded. So annoying… 

Carly has some other favourite things to do in Long Buckby. One is to have a bath in Sandra’s house. Sometimes twice a day. But always once. With opulent lavender bath salts whilst burning incense and candles and listening to a podcast. And in the evening, they always watch a film. Something they both fancy on iPlayer. This is not always successful and sometimes they have had to curtail this if they are too bizarre or scary. They especially like watching Dolly Parton. She is a sort of role model. But certainly not in the physical sense. Sandra has sensible brown hair. And Carly’s hair is silver. Very grey actually. It does take dye easily. But the amount of hair Dolly has. Well, combining both of their hair and multiplying it by a factor of seven won’t get you anywhere near Dolly’s luscious blond curls.

Sandra does sometimes come down to London to see Carly. When she lived in Highbury, Sandra would come with secateurs and would get busy pruning. But now Carly has shifted to the Stow with a paved-in garden, there is little need for trimming Carly’s smattering of plants in window boxes or pots against the purple garden wall. And anyway, Carly loves coming up to see Sandra, and this works for both of them. They know their time together is somewhat limited as Carly is planning to move to Jaffa, Israel and Sandra to Berwick-upon-Tweed, just by the Scottish border. But for now. It works well. Good old destination Long Buckby.