Monday 26 April

Last Thursday himself and I went to the Naidex exhibition at the NEC (National Exhibition Centre) in Birmingham.  Just south of it actually.  It's an exhibition showcasing disabled equipment, whether for use by other-abled people (like me) or their carers, either family or professional.  It was all expensive of course, as such stuff always is, and I only bought one item

And this was it.   A kind of bean bag lap tray which you could also use as a zip-up bag on the back of your wheelchair.  I bought it because it seemed the perfect solution for balancing my laptop on my lap when my legs are too short to do so.

Of course there were all the usual brochures and leaflets and free gifts that you always pick up at these do's.  A bag within a bag within a bag.  Loading up the car at hometime, A Person went and left that bag on the car park.  Forgotten.  Omitted. Excluded.  So all the car brochures (which we DID want) and all the other (which we didn't) were gone and we went on the show's last day.  Nobody handed it in so that was 35 quid down the drain

Ironically, though we lost all the other leaflets, this one - advertising the only item we bought- did find its way home.  I'm keeping it.  It must be the most expensive leaflet ever published!

Sunday 25th April - please........

It's me - on the beg again.


Kevin, our nephew in Canada, has a tumour on his spine and is to undergo surgery on May 6th.  Until the surgical team takes a look inside they have no idea quite what the outcome of this will be.


Last year I asked your prayers and thoughts for his mum, Jill, who had ovarian cancer.  She lives to fight another day, though of course it'll be some time before she is quite out of the woods.  Your prayers helped her so much, not just in holding her before the Lord, but also in knowing that a worldful of people CARED.


Please will you do it again for her son?  He sent me an email on Friday saying he really feels the need of all the prayers and good thoughts he can get.

Wednesday 21st April - a hairy story

Now flipping heck and botheration, somebody's just pipped me to the post!  I was just going to sound off about the colour of my hair then I read someone else's blog and they already did that!  Let's hope they won't mind too much if I go ahead (ha ha ha, ho ho...go aHEAD.  I'm so sharp I should be careful not to cut myself!)  Reminds me of one cowboy saying to his hat "You go on ahead, I'll head 'em off at the pass".  Which further reminds me of my doctor asking me the other day if I could let him have a water sample sometime.  "No hurry," he said, "Just when you're passing."  He didn't see why I was creased up laughing.  That's true, that one.


Anyway, hair.  Mine used to be a goldy blonde colour, which matured by the time I was about 10 into a delicate shade of mouse, which photographed a sort of light copper colour.  I quite liked it and I never noticed any silver bits until I was about 40.  I covered them up by putting in some highlights.  Then the grey took a hold and the highlights couldn't handle it.


An all over colour took care of it but looked awfully 'flat' so I had highlights put in on top of that.  Keeping up that level of crowning glory was getting too expensive so, inspired, I thought I would let the colour grow out.  I was full of eager anticipatrion to see what it would have become.  I had a vision of it being a shining silver or even snowy white like my Auntie Edna!


WRONG!  It was clearly going to be more like mums.  Kind of a Brillo pad without the pink highlights.  The hairdresser decided my original natural colour had been light brown.  IT NEVER WAS.  She was unshakeable though and my hair ended up very brown looking, though I had asked that it be coppery blonde.


Could it be, do you think, that over the years I've been looking at my hair colour through rose tinted glasses?  Was I never really any sort of blonde at all?

Or is it that hairdressers just don't listen?  Everyone else seems to get the colour they want but me?  I have to have whatever the hairdresser wants to do.


Hmph!

Tuesday 20th April

"Post to Canada only takes six days," Mary assured me, airily, "Post a card air Wednesday, it'll arrive the next Tuesday.".  HA!  We reckoned without Icelandic volcanoes holding end-of-time rehearsals!   It does seem selfish to be concerned that a little birthday card didn't arrive.  Maybe I'm reading the wrong newspapers but I haven't seen anythng much about what effect all this must be having on Iceland itself or its people or farm animals or anything.  Maybe none at all.   Maybe their volcano is just flinging all this stuff up in the air to sprinkle us in UK and Europe and cause general mayhem.  I really would like to know they're OK though.

While he's waiting for his next project to occur to him (it will, it will) Keith has had to content himself with digging up the shrubbery at the bottom of the back garden.  It was only a small shrubbery of about 20 square metres but I liked it, dammit.  

This photo is an old one and the shrubs had grown and filled in.
I've no idea of the names of the shrubs in it but they were nice.   The sort of thing you think of with the term 'mature garden'. Now this little vandal has dug them all up.  And why?  So he can turf it and get his money's-worth out of his lawnmower, which has just been serviced and cost him sixty quid.  Logic?   Anybody?

Here's a picture of me with my brother and sister.  As long as nobody stalks them I don' suppose they'll mind

We had to buy a new telly the other day.  The old one was getting on a bit so we were not too surprised when it went on the blink.  We bought it when they first started with wide screens.  It was huge!  A great big fat,heavy Sony but at least you could actually turn it off without pulling the plug out!  It was that on/off switch that went.  The day we got the new one, my friend Judith happened along and, as the old one was going to be scrapped, she took pity on it and said she would have it in the hope her hubby would use it for watching football.  Well of course I just wanted to see the back of the thing so it went home with her.....unloved and unwanted!  Well guess which on/off switch has worked perfectly from the moment Judith plugged it in?


So nothing more to tell.  Well, I'm sure there is but it will only come to me at 3am.  Ain't it always the way?

Friday 9th April

I had an email today that started me off reminiscing again.  I was thinking how differently we used to be towards our neighbours.  By 'neighbours' I mean the people in our street, not the general population.

We had Aunties and Uncles, lots of them, but they were actually no relation to us.  Nor were the 'uncles' our mum's boyfriend!!  No, they were all immediate neighbours or people mum and dad were friends with.   Everyone else was Mr so-and-so, or Mrs.   You could actually determine the degree of friendship which existed by how they were addressed.  Well, that didn't occur to us at the time but, when you come to think about it............

Next door was Auntie Betty and Uncle Harry.  When I picture them I see a tall woman who wore her stockings rolled down round her ankles, a turban and a crossover pinny.  I can't recall her voice except it was LOUD.  Uncle Harry was a little guy who had been a sailor.  You could tell because he had a tattoo on his forearm and I once or twice got to try on his sailor hat so that proved it.  Their kids were Ann, Paul and Graham, friends after whom we named various dolls and Teddy bears.  Ann had something wrong with her teeth, which we were always told was because she crunched her sweets.  It was nothing of the kind but a good enough excuse for our mum and dad not to buy us sticks of seaside rock!

Next door the other side were Auntie Joyce and Uncle Walt.  There wasn't much to remember about Uncle Walt.  He was reputed to be Welsh though I never heard any sign of it and, even then,I knew what a Welsh accent sounded like.  He was a kindly man, as I remember, but he must have been absolutely terrified of Auntie Joyce;  everybody else was!  Oh she was a harridan, she was.  Her kids, David and Brian, were always in trouble, or so it seemed.  They couldn't do anything right poor things.  David, the eldest, was reputed to be 'backward' as they called it then.  I'm not sure what they call it these days - but 'backward' was a cover-all expression for anyone who was not the sharpest knife in the drawer.  I remember we were discouraged from playing with him and, by association, with Brian too.  I was sad about it then and I'm sorry for it now but in those days you didn't question your elders.  Auntie Joyce was reputed to be 'a bit odd' because she had a brain tumour and might die any minute.  Well she never did and I believe she's around to this day, though Uncle Walt's gone.  Don't blame him!

Next door to Auntie Joyce were Auntie Jessie and Uncle Pip. parents of Kevin and Shane.  My mind's eye picture of Auntie Jessie is of a small, pretty woman with beautiful shining, short, brown hair and a lovely Northern Irish accent.  She must have been exempt from the turban which everyone else's mum wore.  I don't recall her ever wearing one.  I don't recall any pinny either. Uncle Pip was a carpenter and obviously very clever with bits of wood.  He once built a collapsible caravan in his back yard but I don't think they ever used it.  They always had a nice car - a rare thing to see parked outside a council house in the 50's.  There is one incident concerning Auntie Jessie which must have made a huge impression on me, though I won't have known what it was at the time, I'm sure.  She had been getting really fat for ages then suddenly,one day, Kevin and Shane weren't allowed to come out and play and we hadn't to make any noise in the garden or the field beyond.  Such intrigue and no-one breathed a word to us, though women seeemed to be popping in and out of there like nobody's business.  We found out much later that Auntie Jessie had given birth to a 'blue baby' who needed his blood changed but died before they could get him to the hospital 30 miles away.  Tragic.  Tragedy just would not leave that family alone.  They went 'home' to Northern Ireland for a holiday, where Pip died.  Auntie Jessie and the boys stayed there in Ireland. 

These were the only grown-ups whose Christian names we were allowed to utter.  Everyone else's parents were Mr and Mrs.  Even as an adult now, anyone who was Mr or Mrs then would be today still.  Quite diffrent from today when Christian names is the norm.  I don't mind in general unless it's a call centre.  "Good morning, Duh-di-Duh Limited, Perry speaking, how may I help you today?????"  The first thing they ask is your first name.  This is just so they can be your new bezzie mate.  Well, just for them, my first name is Mrs!

Enough for today.

Thursday 8th April

It was about half past five this morning (yes, really) when Keith broke the news to me.  "I'll make you a cup of tea,"  he said,  "Sit over here, make yourself comfy," he said,  "There's something I've got to tell you,".

You know that sinking feeling you get as your stomach flips over?  You know how you suddenly become conscious of your own heartbeat?  You know how the world stands still, just for a minute?  It was probably having a cup of tea brought to me that did it.  He perched on the edge of the chair opposite and leaned solicitously forward, twiddling his wristwatch.

"I hoped you wouldn't have to hear this",  what on earth was wrong? "But I ought to start at the beginning.  Do you know its 5.30 am?"

"Yes," I said, glancing at the mantle clock just to be sure......the house seems ok, no bruises on Keith,  Sally's eating so she's OK so what.........???

"Well when it gets to 6 o'clock,"  pause for dramatic effect, "Did you realise that it's 6 o'clock TWICE EVERY DAY".

I tell you, murder may yet be done in this house!!!!!!