Mature Student

Moodle, Doddle and Bear.

Not a team of Dickensian accountants or the stars of a children’s YouTube channel, but electronic platforms to aid learning and collaboration.  Who knew?  I’ll tell you who didn’t know.  Me.

Last time I was a fresher was 1996.  Peter Andre had just knocked The Spice Girls from number one, beer was £1 a pint and I’d have no sooner called a lecturer by their first name than I would have admitted I didn’t really have a preference between Blur and Oasis.  (Just kidding.  Blur.)

24 years later I am a fresher again and the experience is almost unrecognisable.  Covid-19 has put paid to the hustle and bustle of registering and societies who once relied on piles of freebies at a Freshers’ Fayre to entice excited newbies must now bag a Teams slot.  Friend-making has moved from the SU bar to WhatsApp, requiring a mastery of strange new social protocols for which I have not received a manual. 

When I was 19, going to university was a way of killing three years before finally having to grow up.  At 43, leaving behind a well-paid and secure job for four years has required a great deal more consideration.  As a result I am approaching things a bit differently.

Scheduling a Trinitarian Theology lecture from 9-11 on a Monday morning was never going to encourage full attendance.  I managed the first half of it a few times—before rolling my hungover self out at the half-way break and back to my bed—before just accepting defeat and not even bothering to show up.  25% of my contact hours which were sacrificed on the altar of student drinking. 

Now, I’m planning to attend everything.  And not just attend but use my beautiful new stationery to make detailed and useful notes in order to study hard with the aim of actually doing well, rather than simply scraping through.  Adult me has a pride and determination which teenage me would have found entirely unfathomable. 

Teenage me felt like a total outsider at university.  I’d come from the countryside and had never been clubbing.  Everything I knew about ‘fashion’ had been gleaned from the swishy-haired sloanes at the private school I’d needed a scholarship to get in to and translated not one jot to the streets of Manchester.  GCSEs and A levels had come easily so I had no clue how to study and no one to ask.

Now I’m an outsider in a completely different way.  I’m old.  I’m too deaf and hangover-intolerant to go clubbing even if I wanted to, which I don’t.  My current take on fashion is ‘is it comfortable and do I like it?’  I’ve spent 19 years teaching kids how to learn so now it’s time to put my money where my whiteboard is.

They say youth is wasted on the young.  I’m not sure that’s true, but I know a university education wasn’t a particularly efficient use of three of my young years and lots of my parents’ money.  The next four years is my chance for a do-over and I am grabbing it.  If anyone wants me, I’m the one at the front of the class with the eager face and the highlighter pens.

Cyclist

It all started to impress a boy.  

At the age of 35 I was freshly divorced and somehow dating a man 9 years my junior, mega-fit and way out of my league.  I was pretty keen to keep him distracted from these incompatibilities for as long as I could, so when he suggested we go for a bike ride I quickly agreed, not letting details like not owning a bike, or even having sat on one for the best part of two decades, get in the way.  I grew up on my bike.  It’s in my blood.  How hard could it be?  Surely it’s, well, like riding a bike?

Cycling was an integral part of my childhood.  In my village primary school we all learned the rules of the road on the playground and did our Cycling Proficiency test together.  With one bus every couple of hours through my village, cycling was the only way to have any kind of social life.  One of my most memorable birthday presents was my old, shabby bike resprayed a shiny purple and I still have a scar on my chin from tearing round the garden on my wheeled mean-machine before flying over the rockery to execute a perfect, face-first landing onto a wheelbarrow.  When I hit the big smoke for university, it wasn’t the people with different skin tones or accents that blew my rural mind; I couldn’t get over the fact that adults existed who couldn’t ride bikes.

Learning to drive and (thinking I was) becoming cool saw cycling locked up in the metaphorical shed.  And there it remained for 20 years, until I needed to convince a gorgeous young man that I was totally fit and outdoorsy and could absolutely, definitely keep up with him.

It was spring when we first went riding together.  Him in his full Lycra gear and expensive Trek lightweight road bike, me in tracksuit bottoms and a scraggy old t-shirt, riding his older model (there’s a joke in there about the age gap, but my Mum reads these so…).  I was uncomfortable on a bike sized for a 6’ tall man, with no padding, but it was wonderful!  We rode for about 15 miles and I was hooked.

Gradually we started going 20 miles, then 30 and more.  It was a great activity to do together; we rode side by side and chatted, I slowly got brave enough to make our own little exhilarating peloton, and it was a constant source of amazement just how much snacking was as important as pedalling.  I developed a renewed appreciation for the countryside – cycling’s surprisingly immersive as you can hear and smell everything you pass – and felt like I was living Wind in the Willows as the birds popped out of the hedgerows to fly alongside us.

Ebay provided a bike that actually fit and my Lycra collection expanded.  This activity which had been enjoyable with none of the right gear was now something I actively looked forward to.  I remembered the childhood freedom of the wind in my face and revelled in the sense of discovery which each new route brought.

For some ungodly reason, the fit young man wanted to bag an Alp, so we cycled to the top of Mont Ventoux, using Holme Moss as a warm up a few weeks before.  Neither of these succeeded in killing me and my love for cycling grew.  Since then I’ve cycled in triathlons up to half-Ironman distance and completed a 110 mile sportive event with my sister.  I have three bikes and finally understand what a cycling guru friend of mine meant when he said that you can never have too many.  I’ve even learned to love cycling clothes (so many pockets!!).

 

So if you’re thinking about taking up cycling – DO IT!  Choose a pace, a route and a snack that suits you and just crack on.  There is freedom, discovery and cake.  If you get really lucky, there are handsome young men who eventually marry you.  If not, there’s still cake.

Letting Myself Go

"She's really let herself go," they whisper.

Most people would be mortified to hear themselves described like this.  Why?  Letting go isn't a bad thing.  Letting go is freeing and creative and should be encouraged.

I'm going with the synonym of 'permitting oneself to proceed'.

If letting myself go means proceeding to a life of comfort and simplicity, then count me in.  If that's a life where instead of spending hours every five weeks undergoing self-inflicted chemical burns I can spend that time laughing or cooking or loafing, then why wouldn't I want to sign up?

If it means proceeding to an existence where underwear doesn't have to reside in uncomfortably dark niches, but can be big and accommodating then that sounds fabulous.

If a chocolate biscuit is a pleasure, not a half hour run and body hair is insulating, not disgusting then I am letting myself go right to that place.

I am letting myself go all the way to a place where comfort frees us to be our best selves, not our best-looking selves.  Who's with me?