Fri 6 Nov - The result!

I passed!!!!  Flying colours, the man said.  No he didn't, what he actually said was "OK, you'll do,"  but he couldn't keep from grinning like a Cheshire Cat.  Probably cos I was and smiles are infectious aren't they?

I can't get the chair until next week because they won't hand over until I arrange some third party, fire and theft insurance with breakdown cover.  Then it's mine and (I hope) my life will open up a bit.

Ilook forward to going places on my own instead of being taken everywhere.  It's not good for you, you know, being taken places.  Everything has to be arranged and then you feel sort of obliged to go wherever your 'minder' needs to go.  I suppose I ought not to say that, and truly I am grateful when people help me, it's just nice to be in control of something for a change.

Afterwards Keith and  I went out for lunch, which we've been trying to fit in since we didn't go on his birthday on 26th October.  It was well worth waiting for except that there's nowhere to park and it's on a busy road in town, so we left the car at home.  Brrr - I'm sure it's cold enough for snow.  A wheelchair is certainly a draughty place at this time of year.  I'm not complaining mind you!  Well, would I?

XXX

Fri 6 November - Big Day Today

At last the big day is here.  In 1½ hours from now I am taking my 'driving test' in my electric wheelchair.

It's a condition in our locsal NHS Trust that if they provide you weith a wheelchair you ha ve to take a course of instruction followed by a test to show you are competent to drive the thing.  You would think I was taking a CAR test, I feel so nervous.  I'll be backlater to tell you how I got on.

Wish me luck,

Tuesday 3 Nov 2009

Can you believe it eh?  All the pictures I took of Keith's birthday:  the cake, family lunch, tea party - the whole lot - gone!  They were all there on the memory card in the camera when we went to Blackpool but taking shots of the tower ballroom with its intricate decoration used up more memory than I knew.  It seems to have wiped other things to make more space - THEN sent me a 'no memory left' message.   Bother bother BOTHER, say I!  Sounds like a job for the brand new super-duper 8-gig memory stick.It'll have to go grazing off everyone's computers!  It's not the same though, is it?

Telephones.  Most of us have our very own personal carry-out ones these days as well as our home phone.  What they all have in common is push buttons.  I was just thinking this afternoon how I used to like the sound of the old-fashioned dial;  a simple pleasure denied us nowadays.  For some reason I could always remember people's phone numbers when we dialled them on a dial as opposed to a keypad.  I'm hopeless now - probably old age galloping up!  Now  I can't even remember a number for the length of time it takes me to look up the number and pick up the phone!  I did like proper dials though.  I didn't even mind ruining my nails in the holes.

There was something about a proper telephone ringing noise too.  Made from a proper bell, it was.  I know this because I once took one apart to see if I could alter the sound because the 2 phones on my office desk sounded identical.  A small bit of sticky tape stuck on the bell altered the sound just enough so I put it together again - and realised they were the same colour!  So I ended up with a r-r-resonant, r-r-rich r-r-ring-r-r-ring on one and a dull muted thud and a blob of Tippex on the other.  No needto mess about like that now.  You can choose your own ring, and what an eyeopener some are, to be sure!  My niece has an incredibly rude one which, basically amounts to an irate bloke urging you to "Pick up the *** phone.  Answer the phone...why dontcha,  Pick the *** thing up".  It gets louder and more insistent the longer you leave it.  Great in the supermarket checkout!

Let's take a step further back:  who can remember those old Bakelite telephonrs?  The first office I ever worked in had them.  Goodness knows how old it was even then, when plastic ones were the norm.  They smelled horrible and the handset weighed a ton but their dial made a beautiful sound and there was always a tiny little 'ching' when you hung up, which made slamming the phone down extremely satisfying and the person on the other end knew the phone had been slammed.  Not so now.  There's no sound when you press the disconnect button now and he who caused the displeasure rings you back and says"I think we got cut off..........".  Round 2 - ring-ring!

A Wet Weekend in Blackpool

ALBERT AND THE LION

There's a famous seaside town called Blackpool,
That's noted for fresh air and fun,
And Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom
Went there with young Albert, their son.


A grand little lad was young Albert
All dressed in his best; quite a swell
With a stick with an 'orse's 'ead 'andle
The finest that Woolworth's could sell.


They didn't think much to the Ocean
The waves, they were fiddlin' and small
There was no wrecks and nobody drownded
Fact, nothing to laugh at, at all.
So, seeking for further amusement
They paid and went to the zoo
Where they'd lions and tigers and camels
And old ale and sandwiches too.


There were one great big lion called Wallace
His nose were all covered with scars
He lay in a somnolent posture
With the side of his face on the bars.


Now Albert had heard about lions
How they was ferocious and wild
To see Wallace lying so peaceful
Well, it didn't seem right to the child.


So straight 'way the brave little feller
Not showing a morsel of fear
Took his stick with its 'orse's 'ead 'andle
And shoved it in Wallace's ear.
You could see the lion didn't like it
For giving a kind of a roll
He pulled Albert inside the cage with 'im
And swallowed the little lad 'ole


Then Pa, who had seen the occurrence
And didn't know what to do next
Said "Mother! Yon lions 'et Albert"
And Mother said "eeeh, I am vexed!"


Then Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom
Quite rightly, when all's said and done
Complained to the Animal Keeper
That the lion had eaten their son.


The keeper was quite nice about it
He said "What a nasty mishap
Are you sure it's your boy he's eaten?"
Pa said "Am I sure? There's his cap!"
The manager had to be sent for
He came and he said "What's to do?"
Pa said "Yon lion's 'et Albert
And 'im in his Sunday clothes, too."


Then Mother said, "Right's right, young feller
I think it's a shame and a sin
For a lion to go and eat Albert
And after we've paid to come in."


The manager wanted no trouble
He took out his purse right away
Saying "How much to settle the matter?"
And Pa said "What do you usually pay?"


But Mother had turned a bit awkward
When she thought where her Albert had gone
She said "No! someone's got to be summonsed"
So that was decided upon.
Then off they went to the Police Station
In front of the Magistrate chap
They told 'im what happened to Albert
And proved it by showing his cap.


The Magistrate gave his opinion
That no one was really to blame
And he said that he hoped the Ramsbottoms
Would have further sons to their name.


At that Mother got proper blazing
"And thank you, sir, kindly," said she
"What waste all our lives raising children
To feed ruddy lions? Not me!"

Does anyone remember hearing this recited in a broad Lancashire(ish) accent by the late Stanley Holloway?

 
Now, I found it absolutely vital to recite this little ditty for you as Keith and I have just today come back from this self-same place. 
 
Blackpool, Lancashire, England.  The seaside town to beat all seaside towns.  Home of the "Kiss me quick" hat and the candy floss on a stick and draconian landladies.  The place where these ladies - proprietors of the Bed and Breakfast Boarding house - would, not all that long ago, enquire into your marital status before they let out a room to you and any chap you had in tow.  And you had to be married to THAT chap, not some other one upon whom you were 'doing the dirty'!
 
Home of the Illuminations.  Has anyone outside England actually heard of Blackpool Illuminations?  I only ask because, you know, I was so very disappointed with them.  I didn't think there was anything earth-shatteringly beautiful about them or spectacular.  In case you don't know, I'm talking about a display of multi-coloured lights which runs the full length of the sea front.  They get switched on by some celebrity in September and switched off again early November - I suppose by the lights-switcher-off but perhaps they have another celeb.
 

Home of the Tower.  Blackpool Tower, not Eiffel Tower, though it is alleged to look like it.  That'll be if you look at it through your fingers, through half-closed eyelids, in a fading light!  But that's only the outside.  Keith wanted to go see a show which had its last night when we were there.  It was in the Tower Ballroom.  Now, this is so famous over here - specially if you're into dancing - that I can't imagine the rest of the world not knowing about it.  It is beautiful - almost indescribably beautiful.  Breathtaking.  The staff there were so helpful to me in my wheelchair and decided that I - a whole posse of us wheelchair users in fact - should visit the top of  the tower (or as near to it as the lift will take you).  We were treated like royalty, escorted to our tables as well as for the bird's-eye view from the top and then at the end escorted out again.

Strange isn't it how the negative sometimes begets the positive?  The first thing I noticed about Blackpool was that it looks very run-down, seedy even.  Worse than Cleethorpes, and that's saying something!  Then I saw how clean everywhere was.  No litter in the streets, not even in the early morning when you might expect it.  It could have been the origin of the term 'shabby chic'

And of course there were the shops.  I was surprised to find there a seriously good shopping centre;  places to eat, whether just a quick coffee and a bit of cake or a  special lunch;  everyone so kind and welcoming and helpful.

I'll go there again, although I was quite sure this would be my one and only!  And all just 2½ hours from home.  Roll on summer.

Friday 16 October - The Eleven Plus

I was just reading Marlene's wonderful reminiscent entry and it sent me off on a memory trip myself.   I hope she won't mind me sharing her theme.

I was at grammar school (in England) 1962-1968.  To get there you had to pass your 11 plus exam at junior school.  They say  this was a terrible ordeal for an 11 year old but I don't remember it bothering me.  Come to that the 11 plus is one of the few 'events' in my life that I have no memory of at all.  What I do remember is the results arrivingin the post addressed to my parents.  I had got an 'interview'.  That meant you didn't get a good enough mark to pass straight through but you MIGHT be good enough if they saw you.  And so on the appointed day I turned up with lots of other kids to be interviewed at the grammar school we would go to if successful.  We had to sit at the desks in a classroom.  Old fashioned desks they were, single ones with a sloping lid and an inkwell at the top right hand corner next to a shallow channel where your pen would rest.

Ooh the smell of that classroom.  I can smell it now, a mix of blackboard chalk, old wood, dust and chewing gum.  I sneaked a look underthe lid of the desk, which was heavily pitted with carved-in names of the "Frid loves Mary" kind, not to mention some very artistic and colourful - and rude - ink blots.   Tacked underneath the lid was someone's timetable.  Biology, physics, chemistry - I can remember even now how I felt reading those words.  I'd heard of them but didn't know what they were.  Science I supposed as they were "ologies".  Gosh I was impressed.   English, French, Russian - Russian?  Would I have to learn that?  English literature.  I so wanted to go to that school.  It was probably a good thing they sat us in that room where us nosey 11-year-olds got a sniff of life in Big School because quite honestly I don't think many of us really knew quite why we were there.  We were told to go so we went!

I must have come over as an enthusiastic little soul because I got in and a few weeks later my parents got a big fat envelope in the post listing all the clothes and equipment I had to have before term started in September.  It was all very specific, even down to the shops (only two I think) who were official stockists.  Brown school knickers, divided skirts (for playing hockey in), school socks, regulation Gabardine coat with hood, brown leather shoes, Juliet cap.  The list went on for pages and pages.  When I think back it must have been scary for my parents because all those things must have cost a fortune and they never had any money.  A year later my brother went there too and my sister 2 years after that so it must have been a real struggle for them. 

And there was no compromise:  it was a brown pleated skirt or a gymslip (sorry America, I can't explain that one.  Suffice to say they were itchy, hot, ugly and you looked like a sack of potatoes wearing one!).  You couldn't wear a straight or A-line skirt.  There were  certainly no pants, not under any circumstances.  In the freezing cold of winter you had to wear your school coat, school skirt, school socks and shoes, school scarf and you would arrive at school with your poor legs all red and chapped.  And THEN if it wasn't actually raining or snowing, you had to wait outside until summoned in by the bell.  You couldn't even wear tights until the third year (you would then be 13 or 14) and then only thick woolen fawn ones.  The poor boys had to wear short grey trousers until the third year, when they were allowed long trousers so their legs got chapped even worse than ours.

After Easter (and not a minute before) you had to wear your summer uniform.  Instead of skirt, blouse and tie you wore a cotton dress with very narrow yellow and white stripes.  These were not available to buy in the shop, not even the authorised stockist.  You took a pattern home and your mum was expected to make it.  As luck would have it my mum was quite handy with the sewing machine but I can't think how the daughters of non-sewers got their frocks made.

To think, I wanted to go to that school.  The alternative was "Pram Pushers".  At our tender age we didn't quite know why they called it that but we were soon enlightened!  It was a Girls' secondary modern school and "you don't want to be mixing with their sort" - and that came from our teachers!!  I thank God I never became a snob.  Many did.

Having said all that, I was still sorry to see Grammar Schools go when they were done away with.  I may never have understood anything about physics or geometry but at least I knew what they were.  'General Science' is what  they have now and 'general knowledge' seems to have died out altogether.  Maths may have been like the dark side of the moon to me but  I can add and subtract without a calculator and I know my times tables.

I know The Lord's Prayer too.  They  don't even learn that any more.

xxxx

Weds 14 October

SHE'S BACK!!!!  The mouse is back

I really thought I had lost her forever!  Today a little widget clicked in my mind.  The light dawned.  The fog lifted. I have so many pictures to drag over from my desktop pc to this laptop that I  feel I shall be at it forever but at least I now have some sort of idea what to do.

And me and Mouse are reunited!

She begs to be allowed to sit at the top AND bottom of this page - just this once - in celebration, and so she shall.  Tra-la-la.

xxxx

Tuesday 13th October (just)

I have to make (yet another) request of you, my blogger friends.  I seem to be doing this a lot this year.  Keith's brother, Stewart, lives in Canada, as some will know, a few thousand miles away from us.  His wife Jillian was diagnosed with ovarian cancer a few months ago and despite surgery and chemo things are not going well for her
We love them dearly and I wanted to ask if you could all please include them in your prayer considerations.  If prayer is not your thing - well, I'm sure God will be listening anyway if you just think "I wonder how Jillian Marshall's getting on?"

Please?


love, Angie, xxx