Sandra

Fiftythree things I think of when I think about Sandra, in no particular order:

Waiting for that Eurolines bus just after Christmas in 2000 while it was still gently snowing, slightly nervous about finally meeting face to face after several months of IRC and nightly phonecalls.
Helping me cook a proper Christmas roast a year later, over the phone, when I was stuck in Amsterdam on my own and how well that turned out.
Coming into Plymouth on the bus or train and the feeling of excitement I got.
Her little trick of putting a bit of cinnamon in the coffee on Sunday afternoons to make it a bit more special.
Getting em to drink coffee from a French press rather than a filter machine in the first place.
Her baking: bread pudding, banoffee pie, apple crumble and all that good shit.
She also made hash brownies and the first time she did that I slightly misjudged how long it would take to notice and I had three before it kicked in… Whoops. (Also the time we saw Up in 3d while slightly high.
How nervous she was going into a coffeeshop for the first time when over here: “what would her mother think”. Dope helped a lot with the pain and nausea she had to deal with over the years and she smoked a lot, even in hospital. Smoked a lot of fags as well, her and the nurses.
Dancing in the Moonlight and how omnipresent that song was in Plymouth in 2001 and always remind me of the parties we went to.
Going over to Middelburg to meet my family for the first time. Somebody was nervous…
How happy she was when she found a Marks and Sparks in Amsterdam — just in time for the closing down sale…
The way she biked all over Amsterdam when she finally had a bike that suited her and wasn’t built for freakishly tall Dutch people. Bill the pony she called it and she did everything on it.
The time it got stolen because she had left it unlocked outside our front window and how, when I came back from work, I spotted it near the bus stand and brought it back home and how pleased she was.
That other time when we biked all the way to Oostzaan to pick up the kittens we had gotten from the asylum there, then biked back, each with a kitten in a carrier on the back. That was about a ten kilometre ride there and back.
The time when our older cat in our old flat went on the lam and Sandra had made posters for him to hang up at the bus stop and then one night he just sat there at the edge of the bed, calm as you like.
She liked classical music, but only if it was baroque: Handel or Telemann or, Mozart; anything after Beethoven or so, not so much.
She’d been to a hell of a lot of rock concerts though, having seen groups like Blondie before they’d broken through play in Plymouth and later, in Georgia, going to almost every British group coming to Atlanta.
Campaigning against the War on Iraq together.
Her loathing of Blair for getting the UK into the war and what it done to it in general and the army in particular.
She’d been in the army herself. Couldn’t get the money to go to college from her parents, who were then caught up in a nasty divorce, so joined the RAF regiment to escape.
Another way she escaped, going to all the soul dance clubs like the Wigan casino.
P-Funk (wants to get funked up)
How political she was and remained, having moved from Labour to the SWP and, when she couldn’t do anything else, blogging about
When we were doing some campaigning in Plymouth and bickering good humouredly while collating flyers and somebody asked how long we’d been together as we sounded like an old married couple; it had been less than a year at the time.
Her hatred of Justin Webb and love of Eddie Mair.
She was an incredible arachnophobe and I really shouldn’t have teased her with it as much as I did.
Watching comedy together: Have I Got News for You, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, QI, The Thick of It, Armstrong and Miller, Mitchell and Webb, Dead Ringers, Hyperspace…
Staying in Plymouth over Christmas the first few years we were together and going to see the Lord of the Rings films in the cinema there.
Going to Marxism together one year, then skipping the con on Sunday to spend the whole day sitting in the pub reading the Sunday papers and having a roast…
She always was nesh, getting cold quickly and it didn’t help that the first year in our house the heating didn’t work.
That one time in her flat in Plymouth at midnight when we needed toilet paper right now and I ended up walking all the way to the allnight Spar at the bottom of Muttley Plain to get some, downhill all the way, which was alright, but not so good on the way back.
She was on David Mitchell’s side regarding I could care less, which is why I kept using it.
That first time that I sat in the front seat of the ambulance as she needed to be transported to hospital and the lights and siren had to be put on.
Staying at a camping site in Woolpit for the Clarecraft Discworld Event.
I went over to Plymouth in May 2001 to stay with Sandra and try and get a job, then got roped into the Socialist Alliance election campaign, as Sandra was the election agent for the local candidate (Tony Staunton). That was one of the things that made me a socialist.
Watching the fireworks at Nieuwmarkt on New Year’s Eve. Watching the fireworks display in Plymouth in August.
Sandra’s cooking in general, which her father had taught her. She was a great cook, always using fresh ingredients and taking the time to get it right. Even when she herself judged it as barely adequate, it was still good.
Our wedding, two days before the operation that was supposed to get her better. How she instead went into coma before the operation, but not before she was married. That was such a moment of joy and grief.
All the blogging she did on Prog Gold, keeping the blop up much better than I ever did.
Pimp my crab
When in late 2003 Sandra had decided that it would be easier for her to come over to the Netherlands than for me to get a job in the UK. So one Friday in October me and my brother and a friend of his hired a big moving van and drove to the UK, via the Chunnel, got there on Saturday morning, first moved Sandra’s son to his student flats, then got all her gear and furniture and loaded it up, then drove back on Sunday. I remember stopping to eat at a Wimpy bar and finally experiencing first hand how the English can ruin the one great virtue of fast food, that it’s fast.
ISIHAC.
Radio Four in general. She’d been an old fogey at heart since childhood.
Buying our first house together. She had spotted the flat, she had made certain it had a garden, she got in touch with the mortgage people. It took about a month of hard work, with me and my brother breaking down walls before the more ahem technically minded members of the family came around to help put in a new wall and lay the flooring and all that.
She was very house proud in general, partially due to her upbringing as well as wanting to have a safe haven somewhere, what with all the problems and misery she had had in her life.
One small example of which was the way all her old books and stuff she had stored at her father’s house were thrown away after he’d died (before I’d met her) which means she had barely any mementos from her childhood…
Going to Artis when it was open at night as well during the summer and getting caught up in a summer thunderstorm, sheltering in the cafe in the middle of the park.
From the outside it may well have looked as if Sandra’s life revolved around her illnesses, but she always careful not to let that happen, to live as well within her limitations as she was able. That was always one of the things that impressed me the most about her, that she kept trying to lead as “normal” a life as possible.
So she also got annoyed if I teased her with finding her “inspiring” or a “hero” for this. She always said that she wasn’t, just a normal person trying to lead a normal life.
Even in hospital she tried to keep her own thing going. She kept up her reading, tried to do some blogging, kept her fag habit up even if she had to stand out in the rain to smoke.
Without her, I’d never have discovered half the authors I’ve read now, from Richard Fortey to Ngaoi Marsh.
Going into hospital together a few days before Christmas, 2010 for our kidney transplant.
How her doctors had told her when she had had her first bout with cancer, that she would probably not live to be fifty and be lucky to reach forty. Well, she managed fiftytwo birthdays, but not fiftythree.

Happy birthday sweetie.

Eleven months to the day since Sandra died. Time flies even when you’re not having fun. I thougt I’d keep it light today by just sharing some of the songs that would always cheer her up.

Sandra had always been a Paul Weller fan, but never more so than during his Style Council days.

From the Style Council’s Long Hot Summer it’s only a short step to Roy Ayers’ Everybody Loves the Sunshine:

Roy Ayers is one of those jazz/funk crossover artists that made the seventies such an interesting musical decade. The Crusaders are another example; their greatest hit Streetlife being not quite like their other work… Here they are at Montreux in 2003, with Randy Crawford:

I’ve talked about how much Sandra liked the Brothers Johnson’s version of Strawberry Letter 23 before, but here’s Shuggie Otis’ original version:

As for the Brothers Johnson, another favourite was Land of Ladies, which always reminded her of driving through France on a family holiday with the album on which this song appeared the only cassette available and hence being played over and over.

Stevie Wonder was another huge favourite of Sandra’s. Y’all know what this is.

Not quite as sophisticated as Stevie Wonder, but certainly as funky was Johnny “Guitar” Watson, who had had a long career already before he reinvented himself in the seventies. Here he is on Soul Train: