Can You All Hear Me at the Back?

ASTOUNDING NEWS

2011-01-26T13:58:00.000Z

Before I get sidetracked, as I usually do, let me just share a little gem of information with you: MILWAUKEE is in WISCONSIN! All these years I had Fonzie living in Idaho.

I feel totally horrid today, so horrid infact that at quarter to two in the afternoon I still am not dressed. Back hurts, chest hurts , I spent last night barking like a dog. In fact while we're on with dog analogies May I just say I feel ruff! More paracetamols, that's what I need.

BANISHED!

2011-01-25T15:40:00.000Z

I've been banished to the bedroom! Funny that since it was only a couple of hours ago that I was urged to get up. There are strange bangings and clatterings going on in the living room. Well I'M not looking! Today's the day our new fireplace is being fitted (not by Keith) and I have dreadful visions of the chimney - a big tall one at the end of the roof - crashing to the ground and the chimney breast in the living room caving in. I've got such a disaster movie going on in my head.

A cup of tea has just been set on my desk. Did I detect Keith hopping from one foot to the other? Don't be daft Ang, the old fireplace is out already. That was a bit quick. Has he done it properly? The disaster movie has now cut to panning around the 2" layer of soot covering our living room. I can smell soot, I'm sure I can.

Keith just came back in here. leaving the door open. That must mean there's bad news and I should watch what I say in case the fitter hears me. "Fitting will cost a little bit more because he has to cut out a couple of inches all round to make the hole the right size AND remove a back boiler." A BACK BOILER??? I didn't know there was one of them. Did you know that? Just how old is that fire, I'm wondering. Maybe we should have put it on Antiques Roadshow.

I can hear drilling or something. No, it'll be a brick saw....and I picture another few months of getting rid of brick dust from everywhere. Whatever happened to using a bolster and lump hammer to carefully remove brickwork not needed?

That amaryllis I mentioned last time is blooming beautiful! It has 3 trumpets fully out and a fourth on the way. My sis started hers growing at the same time and the stem is still only an inch long. She says she's chucking it out
but I think it'll go if she lets it. Just look at MINE (she said smugly):

Remember that lovely Kelloggs brekky basket I won in Marie's giveaway last year? Red. shiney teapot? This is that teapot today:

I loved that teapot. Poured beautifully, never dripped. And now look at it. It's all Keith's fault. I can never use it for tea again. I wonder if I could grow herbs in it. What does bergamot look like? That's what gives Earl Grey its distinctive flavour isn't it? Might look nice growing in it and out of the spout (as was).

They've gone. Obviously there's still work to be done BUT The new fire looks lovely.

'Scuse me while I take advantage............

xxxxx

A few odds and ends

2011-01-22T16:20:00.000Z

Well now, doesn't time fly! My 60th Birthday arrived on 7th January, marking another milestone (or millstone, depending how you look at it) in my life. So now I have a choice: I can become a grumpy old woman or a sweet little ray of sunshine. The latter sounds nice, and perhaps something I should aspire to, but being a Grumpy sounds FUN. You don't think? Think of it: I am now allowed to call all pop music "that dreadful row", I can get my eyes tested for free, Ditto for prescriptions - I can be a drug crazed maniac for absolutely nothing. I qualify for Sheltered Housing. If I could only get on a bus I could go all over the place. It is apparently possible, in theory, to travel the length and breadth of the country for not one penny piece. Should I happen to get taken to hospital, I am likely to be put in the geriatric ward until they find out what's wrong with me. I can start to quote Maxine. Great!

And yet somewhere along the line I've been a bit disappointed. Being so little I used to always be mistaken for a half-fare on the bus or train. When did that stop happening? When did I stop being "girl" and start being "lady"? When did policemen stop being grey haired old codgers and start being rosy-cheeked youths with bum-fluff on their chins? Even the senior ones! I suppose youth must be that brief time between little plastic pants and big ones!

Thanks to everyone who sent birthday wishes; I had a lovely weekend of celebrations but I'll have to show you some photos next time as, not only has my computer lost touch with the printer, it's not on speaking terms with the camera either!

Mimuther gave me an amaryllis last September and it has just decided to give me a flower. It has spent the past 2 - 3 weeks growing longer......and longer......and longer and is now almost blooming on the bedroom windowsill. It's going to be a lovely deep red..

All my sugarcraft equipment is gone. I was sad to see the end of it but there was no point in keeping it when my silly right arm won't let me do the fiddly bits any more and my rotten balance won't let me stand up, as you need to. So now I need a new hobby that I can do with my left hand; something which doesn't require hundreds of pounds-worth of equipment. I thought about creative writing. I can do beginnings and endings but it's the bit in the middle that has me stumped.

Speaking of writing - There's a danger that I shall be banned from reading in bed. This always happens after Christmas when people give me books. The real danger item at the moment is called "The Wrinklies' Bedside Companion" by Mike Haskins and Clive Whichelow. Having just become a Wrinklie myself I regard it as educational. It is really a work-out manual for all the muscles you use to laugh with! A word of advice: keep a paper bag handy in case you meet yourself coming back in the laughing stakes and start hyperventilating!!!

Another chuckle-worthy tome, given me by a bloggy-pal, is "The Stanley Holloway Monologues". I love Stanley Holloway (well, if he was alive I would). If you're not a middle aged (or more) Brit you probably won't know them but I remember them specially on Children's Favourites on the radio in the 1950's. You have to read them with a north-west of England accent. But - hey - I can do all that and believe me I have the most toned-up laughing gear in the world.....who needs jogging?

Talk to you soon - sooner - soonest!!!

Santa takes a quick breather...

2010-12-17T14:08:00.000Z

HO-HO-HO and all that sort of thing. I should really get some practice in at that or your dear old Santa will be more like a damp squib than a live wire!!

Eh? What am I doing here? Why aren't I in Lapland up to the eyes in wish lists? I thought you might ask that. I said to Angie when she asked me to guest her blog "Angie," I said, "Have you any idea...?"
"Yes, yes, never mind all that," she said, plonking her laptop in my lap (where else). Ha ha - a LAPtop in my LAPland LAP...er...er......anyway: "It could be a real coup getting you to guest write. And I have SO much to be getting on with."

So here I am (I bet you think this is me in the picture). To be honest I seem to be a bit in the way in Lapland at the moment. The elves who help me have it all under control - and believe me there's more to do than yo would think. I mean, somebody has to spruce (ha ha - this gets worse - SPRUCE) - er, spruce up the reindeer. Rudolph of course has to have his nose sparkled up ready for the big trip on Christmas Eve. All the others have to be just so so that they stand out from the electric looky likeys on houses . Not that anyone ever sees them of course. That's part of the magic, part of their charm.

A little tip though: please don't leave bags of carrots or, worse still, sprouts, out for them. It's not that we're ungrateful, it's just that...well you don't have to ride behind them. Nuff said! Goodies for me is fine of course. In fact I'll share a little secret with you now: Mrs. Christmas doesn't cook any dinner on Christmas Eve so your tasty morsels are much appreciated. Oh my, yes, I should say so.....

Oh, and kids, a tip for you too: don't even think about staying awake to see me. You can't. You might hear my sleighbells but you will never see me leaving your presents. So get off to sleep. That's the deal.

A question I often get asked is "At what age should you stop believing in Santa Claus?" . The answer is NEVER. Always believe because if you don't believe in Santa Claus there's not a lot TO believe in. I know, I know, a lot of people say "Jesus is the reason for the Season" and He is, the little guy sleeping rough in the cowshed. But He was given gifts - birthday gifts I suppose in His case - and, being the chap He was, there was need for the whole world to celebrate His birthday so they put the gift delivery out to tender. It had to be somebody who could get round the whole world very very fast - so you got me because Richard Branson wasn't born yet. There now, I bet you wondered why he called his airline Virgin Airways! They had to let him fly the Kings instead. Shepherds travel Ryanair or go on the bus.

The letters I get - by the way, I hope you've all got your letters posted off to me by now. Cutting it fine if you haven't . It's all very well asking for a Kindle but Muggins here has to go cap in hand to Amazon if I need 2 million extra next week. Times have changed as well. We don't get many requests for soft toys or dollies or Meccano sets these days. It's computers or Wii's or Nintendos. Books, of course, never go out of fashion, even for those not big enough to read. I'm glad of that; even if no-one ever reads to you, just the look and feel and smell of books can be enough to spark a lifetime's passion for the written word.

Gosh, is that the time. Mrs C will have done lunch for the workshop by now so I'd better take some fish and chips in. Oh yes, ha ha, very funny. No there won't be a lucky fish shop able to claim Santa Claus as a customer; nobody will know it's me - I'm in mufti so I look just the same as any other elf........ah ah AH - what did I tell you? BELIEVE!

Love from Santa,
xxxxxx

NAME CALLING

2010-12-08T17:58:00.000Z

Keith has been dreaming up names to call me.

Because he has arthritis or rheumatiz or something in his shoulders and can't raise his arms to do his coat collar, he gets Heineken (me) to do it because I can "Reach the parts others cannot".

Paddy O'Dors is another one he has dreamed up because I yell it out every time he lets the dog out for a wee walk. Don't get it? Just say it!

I had to get the gas engineer to come out and fix the central heating today. It conked out yesterday morning so there was 24 hours with no heating and no hot water. It happens every year that just when the weather is at its coldest it all goes off. This year was even worse than last; the temperature in the house dropped to 12°C. I have never known it below 17° and I don't mind telling you I was a little afraid in case any pipes burst. But they didn't, and the guy turned up, and all's well that ends well........

Bit difficult getting the Christmas shopping done. I can't ride my chair up to town because of the ice - it slides all over the place. I thought I would be clever and order stuff online EXCEPT we haven't had any post for more than a week because the Post Office won't let postmen deliver it in case they should break their bones. And sue, maybe? Keith went to post me a couple of snail mails yesterday and said the post box was stuffed full - no collections either!

Today he went to the Post Office to send something by Recorded Delivery and it cost him £5.50. Full marks to the counter clerk who, when Keith said "By gum, that's expensive", came straight back, right off the top of his head, with "Well not really. You could have posted it to next door and it would still have cost £5.50."

See?

Shame innit?

2010-12-04T09:41:00.000Z

I Just had to say a quick word. All those poor people stuck in Spain by some 'wildcat strike making it impossible for them to get back home to dear old (snowy old) Blighty. The word???

DIDDUMS!

How thick can you get?

2010-11-27T14:44:00.000Z

Well, no wonder I couldn't find you a picture of Keith's first wooden masterpiece.. It was actually in my phone. not the computer! But do I know how to take them off the phone? Do I heck! So I needed to take some more - with the camera this time - but the battery had gone flat. Have I a spare battery? Have I heck! So I charged up the battery and took these pictures:

Not bad for a first attempt eh? Small but perfectly formed..

I LOVE THE TAXMAN (today)

2010-11-26T12:23:00.000Z

CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS???????/

The Inland Revenue - sometimes known as 'the bloody taxman' - has decided Keith paid too much tax up to this April and he is going to send him a cheque for £460.

In fact in today's post came just that very cheque - YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

Now, Mr. Taxman - nice, KIND Mr. Taxman - I mean absolutely no offence here - but would it have kind of made more sense to have sent it along with that delightful letter he got from you earlier this very week setting out how you arrived at that figure? Saved on the postage and such? Just saying......

Tchsk!

Not a bit like Blackpool

2010-11-23T18:24:00.000Z

I actually started to write this last Wednesday after we came back from a quick trip to Chester, about 130 miles from here on the western side of England but almost on the North Wales border.

These two were the main attraction!

And THIS is the other thing that Chester is famous for - to say nothing of the CHOCOLATE shop where we even got tasters. FREE ones. SUBSTANTIAL ones!

And guess who THIS is??........

It's KEITH with Todd and young Mitzie, bosom buddies of my lovely friend and bloggy pal, MARIE from A Year from Oak Cottage and The English Kitchen. . Todd declined to have his tummy tickled, I don't know why.......

We were only there Monday and Tuesday, which was a silly arrangement to make because we really could have done with - well,a few more days might have helped! On Monday Marie was hosting a Family Home Evening to which we were also invited, even though we are not Mormons. We enjoyed it so much. I can''t wait to go back. Maybe we'll make it to the Horseshoe \Pass next time.

KEITH has taken up a new hobby - wood turning.. Here he is, busy at the lathe

It's not his own lathe of course but one he has the use of at the club he's joined.

Here's what he was making:

.NO, NO,NOT THAT ONE!! That's the Great Grannie Tooth Fairy on Hallowe'eN (aka Mimuther) I'll have to show you Keith's masterpiece when I fdindthe photo.

Ah well,that's me for now. Back soon.

love,

ANGIE

(my little mouse has gone somewhere too!)

Lest We Forget.........

2010-11-14T16:25:00.000Z

In Flanders Fields
by John McCrae, May 1915

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields."

I am so proud to be British - and not just because we've had a humdinger of a patriotic Remembrance weekend. Or rather, Week. Last night's Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall, for instance. Where in the world could that have been but Great Britain? Throughout the years it has been our opportunity to pay homage to our heroes, the men and women without whose sacrifice and courage we couldn't live the life we do, free from fear, free from persecution.

And yet there are STILL some who say we should draw a line under it all, stop all this pomp. WHAT???

This week has been more meaningful than ever and, for me, one of the most poignant moments - the entry of some of the War Widows to the Albert Hall - made the more so by the acknowledgment of the War Widowers, the children, friends, colleagues and brothers-at-arms.

As long as there are wars on this Earth WE MUST NOT FORGET.

2010-11-09T17:56:00.000Z

There are no words strong enough to describe how I feel about the news that a child was sent home from school for wearing a poppy because it was not a part of the school uniform! That's disgraceful and disgusting and whoever was responsible is beneath contempt. I hope their son or daughter, brother or sister never has need of respectful remembrance and that if they do, God forbid it, this person will have the courage to say "I'm sorry, I was wrong. "

Oh what it is to be retired!

2010-11-03T14:45:00.000Z

My kitchen window is at the front of the house so I can stand there and wash up (this is a dishwasher-free zone) and see the whole world go by.

I can lean against the counter to eat my toast and drink my coffee while kids big and little go past on their way to school. Sometimes they'll be all spruced up in smart school uniforms and not a single creative wearer in sight. Then the second week in September comes and the new girls are already hitching up their skirts where skirts didn't ought to be hitched. Or they may have decided to wear trousers like the boys - it's apparently their right to do this nowadays. In this case you can bet their shoes will not be done up and the laces will trail pathetically on the ground just waiting to be tripped over.

There's one girl...poor kid, you have to feel a little bit sorry for her really...she sort of wears a school uniform except it's all wrong somehow. The front of the shirt is tucked in the trousers while the back hangs sloppily out. The shoelaces are undone - of course - but they are not in ordinary shoes. I don't really know what you'd call them. They're a kind of cross between HUGE loafers with a thick, thick sole, and Doc Martens. If I'm to be honest, they do look ever so comfy but UGLY! Where the majority of other kids go to school in all weathers with no coat, this girl wears, the year round. a thin, nylon kagoul affair. It looks as if she poked her arms in it but forgot to shrug it up onto her shoulders so that the neckline bit hangs halfway down her back and the front bits sit resolutely under her arms. She's tall and rather ....not to put too fine a point on it.... fat and she ALWAYS has a face like thunder. Always looks really aggressive; I wouldn't like to be her teacher. In my head she is an unpleasant character, a bully who other kids are scared of.

But you know, she's always alone, never seen her with a mobile phone, always ties her long hair back neatly.One of these days I'll manage to catch her eye and give her a wave to see if she waves back. I wouldn't be surprised to find she's quite a nice lass really underneath the 'attitude'.

While I munch my toast and concoct lives and personalities for early morning passers by, THIS is what Keith concocts..........

A Satsuma man! It's the entire peel of the satsuma he had for brekky with a felt-tip face drawn on. He's that proud of it. I mean, some people get Turin shroud-like entities, he gets a Satsuma man.

Such is retirement folks, such is retirement.

Keith - what day is it?

2010-10-23T15:48:00.000+01:00

39 years today! That's how long we've been married. It's not really a Big day in the celebration stakes except to us. I dunno! Not five minutes ago it was 1971, the Swinging 60's was past and the future looked rosy. Well, it always does on your wedding day doesn't it? Where has the time gone?

Crikey, I regularly see 1970's stuff turning up on Antiques Roadshow . They're not antiques, strictly speaking, but the 1970's turned out to be a bit of an iconic decade. I used to have a lot of those things. Why didn't someone tell me? I might have been rich now! In fact I would have been but those were the days we were busting to get past at the time!

The old bungalow which was our first home was a veritable shrine to the 70's. We had an orange carpet in the living room and one of the long walls in there was purple. The spare bedroom had a black carpet and purple walls - we must have got a job lot of purple paint or something! Good thing really because we also had 'original features' fireplaces in each room and that one had a soot fall one day. What a mess but at least it matched the decor!

Our kitchen - I loved it. It had high gloss cupboard doors, formica in a kind of brown wood grain pattern, white counter tops (groan...) and the most beautiful sunny golden yellow ceramic wall tiles. There was a freezing cold, dark green Terrazzo floor - and I do mean freezing cold. There was no central heating in the house and that floor...well it was great in summer, let's say!

Those colours that we had. Purple, orange, yellow, brown - absolutely 70's. For a start we heated the kitchen by turning on the oven with the door open, then Keith came home with an old paraffin heater that he rescued from his dad's shed. I recall the smell now! Can't have been good for us.

The house itself was 60 years old when we bought it (for £2,800), which sounded very old then but now it's nothing is it? We've already been married over half that long. You couldn't imagine it though, not then. You just could not think yourself even ten years down the line. A couple of years ago it was for sale (same people we sold it to) for £185,000 - and that was after the housing boom was over. Goodness me, we couldn't even have afforded to buy it back! They made about £175K profit!!!

My abiding memories of the 70's in England have to be the Three Day Week, the winter of discontent, the miners' strike, the explosion of the chemical plant at Flixborough. The coal miners brought the country to its knees, quite literally. With no coal there could be no electric, with no electric there could be no, well, anything much really. Everyone's central heating relied on an electric pump. You might think we'd be one up there, having no heating. Not so. We had a coal fire in the living room and, though a coal yard ran beyond the fence at the bottom of our garden, there was no coal. One of the saddest sights, that, a coalyard with no coal. What electric there was was rationed out and your power was cut off early in the evening if it was your area's turn. Even if it wasn't your turn to either get wrapped up in your coats and blankets or have an early night, you couldn't watch TV beyond about 10pm because that was part of the energy saving measures - it all went off. In theory the 70's ought to have produced a nation of very well-read citizens but what we actually got was a bit of a baby boom - well! It's hard to read without a light and candles were scarce because everyone was buying them. You had to be sparing with the candles because no-one knew how long this might go on for.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I have left over from the 70's - a box of white tallow candles! They're not so white now but there they sit to this very day, under the kitchen sink, just waiting for a national emergency. I hope they never get used.

T.T.F.N.

My Perfect Day

2010-10-05T17:40:00.000+01:00

Aren't there some people who are just so special, so iconic, that you know exactly where you were and what you were doing when their passing was announced?

President JFK, for example. I was only a young girl when he was assassinated in 1963. I didn't know him, never met him and never would have. He wasn't even a politician from my country and yet I can remember so well the TV news programme being interrupted to bring us the news that "President Kennedy has been shot", not realising the can of worms that was about to be opened up. I'll never forget a second of it.

Princess Diana - a princess of our own who died in a foreign country. I was quite a bit older then and,being an early riser, I remember the newscaster on that Sunday morning saying her car had been in an accident in Paris and it was thought she had broken her arm. Another can of worms was about to be opened, one that carries on even now.

Just last night it was announced that Sir Norman Wisdom had died I never met him either but he was, in fact, a major contributor to My Perfect Day. It was in the 1980's and I had taken a week's holiday from work, thinking I would do some spring cleaning. This particular day - it was a Tuesday - it was pouring with rain when I got up and looked set for the day so I decided to bake bread instead. By 9 o'clock we were full steam ahead bashing away at an enormous lump of dough. TV was on for the News, followed by A FILM - you guessed, a Norman Wisdom film. Picture the scene: Keith at work, pouring rain, dog sleeping under the stairs, the smell of bread and an old Norman Wisdom film. It truly was the most perfect day I ever had.

And now NormanWisdom is gone. Please God, let there be no can of worms.

BREAKFAST

2010-10-02T20:24:00.000+01:00

Today I want to have a word with you about the English Breakfast and what it means to a self-respecting Englishwoman.

The term "English Breakfast" has a multitude of meanings, depending who and where you are. I mean, if you were a 250-lb footballer camping in the wilds of England you would want something a bit different to a little old lady, wouldn't you? Tea or coffee? Toast or fried bread? Or both? And how do you like your eggs?

Hotels here generally serve absolutely everything you can think of: bacon, fried eggs, sausage, tomatoes, mushrooms, baked beans (oh yes!), fried potatoes, fried bread. They also offer various breakfast cereals, fruit and fruit juices to start off with and, just in case you still feel peckish, a couple of slices of toast with a selection of jams, marmalades and honey. AND copious quantities of tea or coffee to wash it down with.

If you ask for a "Full English, please" you'll get the lot, and you will, by the time they bring the bacon and whatnot to you,have helped yourself to fruit juice and cereals and whatever else you can get your hands on. With any luck you will have been asked "Coffee or tea, love?" and been accordingly served a big pot.

You can ask for specific items such as "Only bacon and eggs, please" but you should only expect to receive, say, 2 bits of bacon and 1 fried egg - i.e. whatver normally comes on the plate with everything else. "It's portion control love,". As to what they did with your "portion controlled" sausage, I shouldn't bother asking!

We once went in a superb B&B (bed and breakfast) in Whitby, North Yorkshire. We were asked "What would you like for breakfast?" and handed a menu which listed what we could choose from INCLUDING smoked Salmon with scrambled eggs and fresh poached Whitby kippers. Eggs could be cooked any way at all without having to give 2 weeks notice! That's my kind of place. Go on then, I'm a snob I suppose.

But I'm Still Here....

2010-09-30T22:37:00.000+01:00

Yes, I am. I may have been hawked off to the hospital for a few days but here I am again, still stuffing my face with "poorly grapes" while the "poorly chocolate" sits in the fridge waiting my attention when I'm on my own!

There was a lovely surprise waiting when I got home.

It was HUGE!

Such stuff as it had in it! Cereal bowls, toast rack, tea pot, mugs,jug, boxes of breakfast cereal .................... and even the enormous wicker basket you see here!

And all of this was my prize in Marie's giveaway over here

Thanks Marie - I wouldn't like to have been the delivery woman but it was a delightful thing to come home to.

Just a quick aside: has anybody else noticed Woman's capacity for reading absolutely anything when they're in hospital? How, when someone goes home, the others swoop in like vultures on the pile of trashy magazines she left behind?

You showed me yours; I'll show you mine!!

2010-09-22T18:42:00.000+01:00

Marie threw down the gauntlet by giving us a guided tour of her fridge, well one of them. BOO HOO I wanted to see the other one, the one that didn't make the kitchen!

My fridge is in the kitchen and is quite huge. It's by Hotpoint and has a freezer to match - funny name for a fridge and freezer HOTpoint....

Anyway, the fridge is the one with all the postcards and whatnot on it.

We got big things like these because, like Marie, I hate trying to squash stuff into your average under-the-counter fridge. Unfortunately my big fridge tends to be the repository for all the bits and pieces that are started on but not finished. I always hope they get found before they grow hairs on!

You can even tell who put what in there: if I did it's covered up, Keith never covers anything.

Here goes then!!

The inside of my fridge or, as it is sometimes known, the dark side of the moon! Towards the top of the door is some butter and you can just see a little flash of red. That's an almost used tube of tomato puree. For shame I found its twin lurking in the veg box, right at the bottom; I wondered where that had gone.

Beneath that is where the cheese gets stuffed in. There's a small bit of reddish cheddar, some blue stilton that;s been there ages but Keith swears is lovely. Oh well, it's his tum! An unopened pack of feta which is well in date (I checked). Next to that compartment, above the eggs, is an unopened mozzarella and some processed cheese slices, which are not bad if you put them in a sandwich with some raw onion and leave it a few hours before eating (OK, we're odd).

Below the eggs we see a couple of cartons of tomato juice and an opened Orange and Peach juice, a smoked sausage and a 4-pint carton of semi-skimmed milk. There are some salad dressings in the bottom tray, some orange juice and an unopened 4-pints (looks like we need to have rice pudding this week).

The top shelf of the fridge proper contains a jar of 4-cheese pasta sauce, capers, cornichons, gherkins, very hot chilli pepper, a jar of mushroom salad, half a jar of lazy ginger, the same of lazy chilli, jars containing little dabs of jam, orange marmalade, ginger marmalade and that's not all.............

Next down is a bottle rack with 2 bottles white wine and half a bottle of slimline tpnic water (gone flat).

On the next shelf you can find 2 cans Spam, 2 cans of tuna in sunflower oil, a can of skinless boneless salmon, some more lazy ginger, redcurrant jelly.

Next up would be 2 lenon mousse and 2 gooseberry, more orange marmalade - a full jar this time. In that white dish is 2 leftover potatoes and there's another white dish with a bit of buttcream. Both will be chucke out eventually. There were 2 x 6 eggs but I took them out for baking tomorrow.

See the 2 packs of Phili on the next shelf? There was another hidden away at the beck of the shelf above. Then there's yet more jam and pickles.

Do you know what? I can't go on! I am totally mortified that my fridge is in such a state. It's not mucky, just in a state. If I could only reach those 3 top shelves.........

OK, now my challenge to you is to tell us what's in your fridge that's out of date and wants chucking! Go on, I dare you.

It was all Deutsch to me!

2010-09-19T16:51:00.000+01:00

I've just been reading Ma Rainey's blog, "What's New at my House" in which she speaks of "Oktoberfest", which, in common with anything else that might be fun, we don't 'do' over here (unless you happen to be a German ex-pat of course). WHOA - somebody altered the points and sent me hurtling off down Memory Lane again............

"Kohlfahrt" literally translated means "cabbage-tour". Doesn't exactly help you much, does it? So here are some more details: Kohlfahrten (this is the plural) are only known in north west Germany, roughly as indicated by the red circle in this map. If you live around Oldenburg it is almost impossible not to go on one at some stage. Already not far southwest of Bremen some people have never been on a Kohlfahrt, although probably everyone knows what it is.
Kohlfahrten usually take place during January and February, preferably on a sunny and cold day. But I've also been on a Kohlfahrt where it rained the wholly day. So be prepared if you are ever invited to one...
You can only go on a Kohlfahrt if you are invited to one or if you organise one yourself. Usually you go with a group, be it your company or department, be it the football team you're in or just the people you studied with at university. It's not like the Octoberfest in Munich, where anybody can just turn up, put on Lederhosen and a silly hat and start drinking lots of beer.

I never imagined that having a German Foreign Language Assistant in the house for a year in the very early 80's would lead to a firm friendship that's still going strong today, 27 years later. Heike's home was (and still is) Oldenburg, a city quite near Bremen in northern Germany, only these days she lives with her husband and almost grown-up son. She has always loved England and first came here when she was 13 so she speaks our language very well. In fact, in England she taught German, in Germany she teaches English. My German isn't all that wonderful but it would be non-existent if it were not for Heike. Well, her mum actually!

Her mum. bless her heart, speaks barely a word of English but, with my 'barely a word' of German and a bottle of good German wine she managed to teach me all sorts: how to tell the time, how to say please and thank you, the rituals of 'coffee and cake', how to eat a smoked eel. She did this in the same way as she would have taught her kids but not in a childISH way, more childLIKE.. Maybe that's where we're going wrong: our kids have technology thrown at them when they might learn some things better if we talk to them.

When Heike lived with us we used to spend hours chattering about anything and everything. There was no such thing as an early night! She's also a very good cook and even signed herself up for a 10-week basic cooking course on a Thursday evening. I have her collection of recipes still. But the REAL great memory is KALE!

Now, it has become very fashionable all of a sudden to eat this beautiful brilliant green veg but back then, here in England, (well Scunthorpe at least) it was not to be had. You just simply could not buy the stuff anywhere. The reason was that, though we grew it here, it was only for feeding to the sheep! So, unless you went foraging about in sheep troughs you'd have to make do with cabbage! Not Heike. She had been telling us about the Kale parties ('kohlfahrten', yet another ritual steeped in tradition) they had at home every winter and decided that we must hold Britain's first ever kale party in our little house in Scunthorpe.

She went home for the Christmas holiday and came back in early January. How on earth she got through Hull docks customs with a car stuffed with bags and bags of kale, and with vac-packed bratwurst, pinkel sausage and smoked pork under the front seat I don't know! Then 2 kilos of Jacobs coffee and a dozen bottles of wine in blatant full view of anyone who glanced in! As soon as it came in the house, out had to come the food processor. The kale is normally chopped quite small with a knife after it's been washed and picked over but if you had seen that lot you might have been forgiven for having nightmares. We chopped it in batches in the food processor, finally burning out the motor I might add. Every bowl and basin I had was filled with this strange green stuff. Not to mention the bits that didn't make it that far - the counters and floor were covered too.

The next day was the designated party day so we rang round the other foreign language assistants and, in fact ended up with not only the first Kale Party, but a multinational one at that! Apart from 6 English there were 2 Germans, a Swiss, 2 French and a Spaniard.

Next morning, Heike got started bright and early. Into a huge pot (she brought one of those from Germany too, fortunately) went all the kale, half a bottle of white wine, a few bay leaves and juniper berries, salt and black peppercorns the whole pinkel sausages and a big piece of smoked pork. Then it went on the hob over a low light, lid on and it simmered slowly, slowly, for about 6 hours. The sausages didn't disintegrate because they are specially for this purpose. You don't eat the skins, just scrape the meat out of them. The bratwurst were thrown into the pot about an hour before the end of cooking. A huge pan of potatoes went on to boil and when they were done we were ready for off.

We fished out the smoked pork and sausages and sliced up the pork - difficult as...well how tender would you expect it to be after so long? The kale (or some of it anyway) was piled onto the centre of a huge oval platter, with boiled potatoes at each end; the sliced up pork was arranged at one side and a selection of whole sausages at the other. Over the whole thing was ladled some of the liquor from the kale pot and to the table it went, where it was devoured with gusto!

There was no dessert - after that lot you couldn't have managed it - but copious quantities of German beer (you'd be amazed what contraband one VW Golf can hold) and wine were consumed. And we ate and talked and laughed and ate some more and drank a little bit and then we chose our 'Kohl koenig', our Kale King, the one deemed to have eaten the most kale. Guess who? Keith! Don't tell me he hasn't lived! Well, it WAS his house! He has his silver plastic Kohlkoenig pig 'medal' to this day.

Leftovers went back into the pot to be reheated next day.......and the next.....and the taste got better and better. Finally we were down to the last little bit. It got whizzed up in the food processor, I made some bread and we had the most delicious soup ever.

After that we decided that the other nationalities were not getting off scot-free so one or other of them took over my kitchen one day a month and we all shared the fruits of their labours. And just GUESS who got to do the cleaning up?

I was supposed to be excused from doing any English delicacies as I was providing facilities but I did have a Yorkshire Pudding eating contest at which English were excluded. Well, they could eat but not compete. It seems that Yorkshire puds and gravy are beloved by all who taste them. We had to abandon the contest as everyone was having 'just one more' and we lost count!

Happy days!

xxx

Monday 13th Sept - Happenings

2010-09-13T22:52:00.000+01:00

Have you ever noticed how things HAPPEN just at the very time you can't deal with them? Take this morning - please take this morning!A short The postman arrived with a parcel, quite a big one and I couldn't do anything about it. 1) Keith was in the shower so he couldn't answer the door 2) I was in my wheelchair so I couldn't leap to the door, unlock it (where was the key anyway?), jump down the two steps, unlock the back gate and, all without letting the dog go walkies on her own, take delivery of the parcel. Clutching a towel and his bathrobe to preserve decency Keith managed to hop out the other door - just in time to see the Royal Mail van disappearing down the street, Fortunately they left the package by the back gate. Fortunately it wasn't raining.

A short while later, himself took his leave to go out and buy a newspaper. Now about this same time I just HAD to go to the loo. Had to. But I just had this feeling - you know how you do? - that somebody or other would turn up whle I was in the bathroom. Sure enough................sis ! I must be telepathic you see? I must have known she was coming.. The bathroom door handle waggled ominously and there came a little voice "It's only me"

We both had dentist check-ups this week. Anybody living in England will know that places on the books of NHS dentist are like gold dust, They're rare s hens teeth so it always seems slightly - well - not right that Keith is one of the lucky ones. Bless him, he hasn't got any teeth. Not home grown ones anyway. He gets checked for signs of anything nasty in his mouth . Eeeugh, imagine going through school wanting to gaze into other people's mouths. I could never have contemplated certain jobs:

Dentist

Funeral director

Podiatrist

Medical Examiner

Lepidopterist

Vet

In fact, anything involving poking about in something horrid. I did see myself as an actress or a concert pianist. It doesn't seem to have occurred to me though that if I was aiming for the latter I really should know how to play the piano!

The bathroom has loomed large in our comings and goings this week. The other day Keith called through the door "Ang, Ang, it's the medical centre on the phone. Do we want flu jabs this year?"

"Oh yes, yes I do," I replied, "Could you make an appointment for me?"

"Do I want one................?" Oh heck!

xxxx

Tues 31 Aug 2010 - talking about Blackpool.........

2010-08-31T14:36:00.000+01:00

I think I might have already printed this poem, maybe when I was with AOL. I HOPE when I was with AOL! As a child I used to have a book of these, which my dad gave me. I wish I still had it. An English actor, Stanley Holloway, famously recited them in a broad Northern English accent. If you're not English and wonder "Who the heck was Stanley Holloway?", he played Eliza Doolittle's father, the dustman, in the film of 'My Fair Lady'. Let me tell you that was NOT a northern accent. He was an Essex boy by birth. Oh, I've just been told that Stanley Holloway did, in fact, become quite well-known in America. Here's the poem:

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 into 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 "Eeee, 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!"

23 / 24 August 2010 - what a waste of time

2010-08-26T16:42:00.000+01:00

Here I am, back from Blackpoool. What a waste of time, money and effort that was. Yes, I have to admit - most of you will have guessed anyway - that I didn't really want to go in the first place, but even I never expected it to be quite that bad!

First of all the journey there which should have taken 2hrs and 15 mins according to my sat nav actually took almost 5 hrs 30. That was apparently because some guy on a motorway we were not even on decided ending it all off a motorway bridge on the M6 would be the sensible thing to do. I almost knew what he meant! Those on our Motorway who wanted to go onto the adjoining M6 (there were many) had to wait - and so, therefore, did we. Good thing it was a cool day.

On arrival the hotel didn 't look bad - on the outside. Inside was a different story. Oh, the reception area was OK. Bit old fashioned but OK. The first sign of a problem was the tiny, tiny lift! With a good deal of heaving and shoving Keith was able get me and my wheelchair and himself (flattened against the wall) into the titchy space. This was a place that professed to have wonderful facilities for the less able. Our room, after Keith had done the lift thing again, proved not to live up to expectations. Oh the wetroom had plenty of handrails, a higher loo, lower washbasin and drive-in shower. It's a bit off-putting though to find stickers on the door and wall telling us that the floor was slippery when wet! It was a wet room. Hallo? You put a non-slip floor in a wet room.

The windows wouldn't open so no nice bracing sea air. The seals had gone on the doubleglazed units so there was condensation between the panes. The outside of the glass was so dirty you couldn't have seen through it even if there had been no condensation.

There was grime in the corners of the window and the cups on the hospitality tray were stained. Because it looked grubby we thought the bathroom mat had not been changed and one of the towels had certainly been 'recycled'. The wallpaper was grimy and old-fashioned and the paintwork yellowing white and all chipped. I know wheelchairs can give the decor a bit of a battering but it could at least be clean.

I have emailed their Head Office who have replied that they have passed this on to the hotel (it's part of a chain) and I should expect to hear from them in 28 days. I wouldn't recommend that hotel to my worst enemy (if I had one).

As you might imagine, that just about set the tone for the whole trip. But there was one thing that was unspoilable:

The Tower Circus. That was brilliant. The Tower itself is a place you can stay in all day and not get bored and admission to the tower gives you 'access all areas'. You can go in whatever bit of the place you want - ballroom, aquarium, trip to the top, 3D cinema, restaurants and, in our case, a circus performance lasting about 2 hours - and not an animal in sight.. Acrobats, jugglers, clowns - breathtaking and spellbinding. The kind of thing they sometimes, but all too rarely, put on the Royal Variety Show and everybody wishes we saw more like that. No kidding, if they made any mistakes don't ask me when!

The Ballroom. Just perfect if you're a people watcher like me. There are people who base their entire summer holidays around dancing in this ballroom. In fact it is open for dancing all day on most days and - whoo - I could have stayed there all day though I could dance not one step. Those who dance are asolutely dead serious about it. Posh frock, sparkly shoes, arms SO, hands SO, and NOW! Up struck the mighty wurlitzer organ, which pops up and down through the stage, though I never saw that as I was too busy 'watching'. One old lady, I had seen her being pushed in a wheelchair into the circus but, in the ballroom, out she got, on with the dancing shoes and away! Who'd have thought? I have to say though, there are some superb dancers about. Well, they looked ok to me anyway!

I didn't take that many photos because quite honestly Blackpool is one big building site at the moment. I'm sure it will be very nice when it's done but I'm one of those people who are not very good at seeing what things might look like. And anyway, I'm not going to Blackpool again.

I found my little mouse again - YIPPEE!!

Wednesday 18 August 2010 - Fare thi well fer a bit then............

2010-08-18T23:40:00.000+01:00

Just checking in to let you know I'm going away tomorrow (Thursday) until Sunday night. Blackpool! Perish the thought - and I can't find any weather forecast that says the temperature will be any higher than 18 degs (I don't know how you make a 'degrees' sign).

Back next week!

Aaaagh - something has gone wrong! I can't seem to get my little mouse.

ta-ta

Sunday 15thAugust 2010 - It all dovetails............

2010-08-15T22:06:00.000+01:00

...........yes it does, I might have known all this splashing out on new gadgets to replace the old would summon forth SOME unwanted side-effect! My Oven has packed up. Can you believe it? The most expensive appliance in my kitchen has breathed its last. Well, you have to have one so we went and ordered a lovely new one. I'll swear the shop bloke had the ghost of a smirk on his face as he said it couldn't be delivered until 26th August "Sorry madam". How joyful I was to return his smirk: "That's absolutely fine. You wouldn't believe the gadgets I've got to cover this." So until then I can gleefully manage. Poor Keith - he won't be able to make any cakes. For today's lunch the slow cooker did the roast, Actifry did the roast veg, the hob (which still . works) did the veg - Keith did the washing up -SIMPLES, TCHK!

I spent a happy hour this afternoon plumbing in a wireless printer. I must have done something right - IT WORKS!!! It;s a rare day when me and technology gel. I just tell the computer to print and the paper pops out of the printer in the bedroom!

Just in case it should pass unremarked, it's Princess Anne's - the Princess Royal's - 60th birthday today. I almost felt that I grew up with her. Oh, not as a Family member or even a friend, but as one who grew up in my era. I've always admired her forthrightnss, her no-nonsense approach to adversity, her competitive spirit. I admire the fact that she, despite being apparently well back in the queue for 'motherly instinct', turned into a proud , loyal and loving mum who has never been afraid to let her children try their wings. Make their mistakes like she made hers but, unlike her own case, keepng them where they ought to be: within four walls. I wish her a very Happy Birthday and congratulate her on her life to date.

I'd better stop now. I keep getting distracted by the telly!

Friday 13th August - unlucky for some......

2010-08-13T12:44:00.000+01:00

........but not for my friend and fellow blogger Marie, at Oak Cottage . It's her birthday today, her new puppy arrives today, she had good news today, AND she has a birthday cake. But I bet she hasn't put 55 candles on it (heh heh)!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

After my 'gadgets' post the other day, Andy commented that I hadn't mentioned the microwave as being an enabler. Even as I replied to him that I hardly ever used it I got to thinking: warming up mugs of coffee, melting chocolate, thawing breadloaves. softening butter... and so on. So I do use it. Where I have to use a knife for anything I've found that having the best you can afford and keeping them razor-sharp is the best policy.

Amazon is becoming my best friend. Yes, I know, sad isn't it? But a couple of times I've caught Keith attacking the ironing basket. Now I don't mind him hoovering or making cakes but not ironing. Don't ask me why, it's a woman thing. So today I've ordered this:

My friend Judith, also other-abled, swears by hers so let's have a go.

Meanwhile - it's pouring with rain and only 15 degrees AND it's afternoon! I can't remember the summer weather, though I know we did have some. My positive side says it will come back, experience says it won't! We haven't really had much rain so the trees are thinking it's Autumn and are shedding their leaves early. I do hope we won't be denied completely the beautiful sight of trees and hedgerows dressed in their autumn coats.

OK, that's it for now. Nothing to see here sir. Move along now........

xxx

Wednesday 11 August - You still have lifelines left..........

2010-08-11T14:22:00.000+01:00

If there's one thing guaranteed to make me fume it's when people assume, because I'm sitting in a wheelchair, that I must also be not very bright; when they see my hearing aids, that I must have learning difficulties. Sometimes the people who make these assumptions are so-called healthcare professionals. You can tell who they are: they call everyone else "luv" but me "Darling" or "Sweetheart". Would you believe it!

I'm what you might call fortunate in that a) I've been like this quite a while and b) live in England where, despite what you may have heard to the contrary, we have a fairly good National Health Service. I mean,we ourselves villify the NHS but the alternative doesn't bear thinking about. It's just that some of their staff could do with a training update.

I decided long since that I should try and make life easy for myself. I asked myself what things were important to me and cooking came top. On the negative side we don't have a dishwasher. On the positive side I can wash up by hand. I don't like it but I can! These days I use all sorts of gadgets I wouldn't have bothered with in years gone by.

This food processor is something I wouldn't have looked twice at a few years ago. With it I can chop, grate, slice, make fries as well as blend things together. I can juice citrus fruits and grind coffee beans. I can make quite decent pastry in it too but that does take a bit of practise. I have excellent knives that take a lot less washing up........but it's difficult for me to use knives, so I have this food processor.

I also have a little whizzer, kind of a mini-chopper which I use for chopping a few squares of chocolate or a handful of nuts, even herbs. Saves getting the big one out. The stick blender, too, is useful for blending soups in the pan or rescuing lumpy sauces (sharp intake of breath "Surely not.....")

This is a Tefal Actifry. Yes it is a bit big and an awkward shape (I think so anyway). It was also expensive but - hey - in this game nothing comes cheap. In this you can do a full kilo of chips (fries) using only 1 tablespoon (about 15ml I think) of whatever oil you like. They come out beautifully crisp outside and fluffly inside. In other words, it makes chips for fatties like me. In fact you can put just about any veg you want in, mix them up. It'll cook other things perfectly as well but.what am I, an instruction book?

This does exactly what it says on the tin; an electric carving knife. You carve meat with it of course but, because it's fantastic for slicing bread too I can knock us a treat together with this...........

My beloved Panasonic breadmaker, which I've had for years. In fact it may well have been instrumental in selling our previous house 8 years ago. You know.......the smell of fresh bread and coffee? I don't use it every day; we sometimes have shop bought bread. I have never made just dough in it though because the 'beeps' alerting you that it's ready are so quiet I can't hear them even if I stand there and listen . Same with the raisin option beeps. The point is I couldn't use it at all without my electric knife. I do have an electric slicing machine but as far as cleaning it is concerned it really is a step too far! The big circular saw type blade will chop your hand off as soon as look at you.

This electric can opener is fine but you do need to use 2 hands to it. I think there may be something on the market now that is smaller and you only need one hand.. If so I'll get one - after all there's not much else you can do with a can opener.

Last but not least, the Kenwood Chef food mixer, without which there would be never a cake to be found in this house! Years ago, when we were first married, I was proud - and more than a little surprised - to find that I could turn out good cakes using just a mixing bowl, fork and tablespoon. They were a real labour of love but they were the soundest basis I know for learning how to do things and why you do them. I've had this Chef more years than I can remember though and it's worth its weight in gold.....though I'm told it's old fashioned. I don't care, it's lovely and worth every penny I paid for it.

So there you have it, just a few of the bits and pieces that seem to some like extravagances but are to me my lifelines. There are loads of other things that keep the house clean and so on but I don't know of any gadget more reliable than Keith for putting the bins out!!

Thurs 29th July 2010

2010-07-29T17:21:00.001+01:00

Just a quick one. May I just apologise to anyone who had expected to see an email from me during, say, the past 3 weeks or so. It seems that not every email I have written actually ever leaves my outbox. In fact I didn't even realise they ALL pay my outbox a quick visit before going on their merry way! I (poor misguided soul that I am) thought they only went there if I didn't want them to go right away. Well, I ALWAYS WANT THEM TO GO RIGHT AWAY"

It seems to be the trans-atlantic ones that are getting stuck. Meanwhile, sorry if I appeared to be ignoring you. I wasn't really.

Thursday 22nd July 2010

2010-07-22T23:23:00.000+01:00

Something has been preying on my mind lately and now I just have to say it, even at the risk of upsetting my American friends: hands up who thinks Hillary Clinton's hair looks a mess these days? Well, not just these days, ever since she started being Secretary of State she looks like she's been dragged through a hedge backwards! She always used to look so smart. Somebody buy the lady a comb.

Well, that's the bitching out of the way!

I was just reading Ann in the UP's latest entry 'Are we in Kansas' - a reminiscence of her time in nurse training. I think she must have been training about the same time as I started because so much sounds the same.

There were strict rules about uniform for a start. If you left the hospital with your uniform on you had to wear what was instantly recognisable as a nurse's coat and hat. This outfit was navy (dark) blue and the hat was a little pillbox affair. It flattered no-one but that was the rule and had to be obeyed. What you did not do was go floating round the supermarket with your sticky fingered brood getting your uniform contaminated with all sorts.

Nor did you wash your uniform yourself. You were given enough dresses, aprons and caps to last a week with a couple of spares in case of necessity and each Friday, whether you 'lived in' or not, your used uniforms had to be put in your own personal box and left for collection by the hospital laundry. As students our caps were made of white card, which was precut for us to fold - tee hee flat-pack nurses' hats! The IKEA of the NHS!

Our uniform dresses, as students, were green with a zipper from collar to waist at the front and under no circumstances was that zipper anything other than zipped right up, even on a hot day. You wore flat, black, lace-up shoes AND tights and if you needed to go outside on the hospital premises you had to put on your cloak - again, as much meant to keep your uniform contamination-free as to keep you warm. Your dress had to be long enough to just touch the floor when you knelt down - which made it pretty darn long when you stood (try it). We had a horrid Assistant Matron (the Matron was the boss of the hospital) who had no qualms whatever about making suspected transgressors of this rule kneel wherever they were - even in the hospital corridor - so she could check. She certainly wouldn't get away with that these days!

All first year students had to 'live in' at the Nurses' Home in the hospital grounds. The only exception to this was if there happened to be a male student nurse; very unusual then because nursing wasn't considered a men's job. We had 2 of them: Ralph and David! Couldn't have them in a house full of females, though I'm sure they wouldn't have minded. You got quite a nice single bedded room with a dressing table, wardrobe and a small desk and chair and wash-basin. The bathrooms were shared with everyone else but I was lucky to be right next door to one. There were two common rooms (lounges) and one of them had a black and white TV. We had a small kitchen with a stove, fridge and kettle but for a while they closed this because two of the girls kept stinking the place out cooking pilchards. OK? Rather than tell them not to cook pilchards they stopped the rest of us making tea! Typical!

But it wasn't all doom and gloom because if you didn't go home for your days off you could have your bacon and eggs breakfast right there in the nurses' home. You put your name in the breakfast book the day before and a kitchen assistant came over to cook and clear away. We thought that was real luxury.

The watchword though was always obedience. We were there to learn from women who knew more than we did in the hope that one day we would know as much as they did. It didn't occur to us to contradict or argue and, know what, that worked - Yes Sister, no Sister, three-bags-full Sister.. We never used each others' Christian names, only surnames, and patients were always Mr or Mrs or Miss.

Them was the days - or were they? What do you think?

17th July 2010 - HAPPY BIRTHDAY GWYN

2010-07-17T22:48:00.000+01:00

All I wanted to do today is wish my sister a very happy birthday. She's the one with the blue eyes on your right here with my brother and me.

If there was a 'Supersis' award I would have to nominate her - partly because she is (Supersis) and also she's the only sis I've got so I couldn't nominate anyone else anyway.

You wouldn't believe the energy that woman seems to have. She does everything! She is actually a bit of a super few-other-things as well.

Super-Gran for a start! She doesn't look like a grandma does she? Well, not with her make-up on. But she is. A grandson and a grand-daughter she's got and they both worship the ground she walks on. Quite right too!

Super-daughter to our mum, who's 82 now and - despite what she would have you believe - needs a helping hand sometimes. Who's there doing her decorating, taking her shopping, digging her garden and generally running back and forth? Gwyn is.

Supermum too to 2 (how about that for an example of our confusing language!) grown-up daughters, each successful in her own way and each a credit to their mum (and dad)..

Super-missus, she comparatively recently stopped going out to work so as to be available when needed for the grands. She has a big garden of her own, including a big veg patch, and she does most of the work herself while hubby's at work. She it is who gets their caravan sorted out ready for a trip. She it is who stands outside at the local rugby club, half frozen, because that's where hubby is. Now, I've always thought that this, in itself, deserves a medal but it seems she likes it. Oh well, it takes all sorts...........

And Supersis of course for all she is to me. She has so many other things to do but she still helps me out. When I've had broken bones and been forced to sit around all day she's been there hoovering, dusting, washing up, ironing, chatting and being good company. She has helped me with the personal things - and I mean personal things, like in the bathroom, you know?. She has sat for hours at the hospital while I've been operated on. She's driven me here, there and everywhere when I couldn't drive myself. She's even helped Keith out in the garden so he could have a rest sometimes when he wasn't at work. And then off she tootles and does more of the same for mum or her daughters or next door's cat - whoever!

Thank you Petal, you're the bestestmost - have a lovely birthday. xxx

Monday 12th July - Two Interesting Years

2010-07-12T13:14:00.000+01:00

I cribbed this from our local church magazine:

INTERESTING YEAR 1981

1. Prince Charles got married
2. Liverpool crowned Soccer Champions of Europe
3. Australia lost the Ashes
4. The Pope died

INTERESTING YEAR 2005

1. Prince Charles got married
2. Liverpool crowned Soccer Champions of Europe
3. Australia lost the Ashes
4. The Pope died

LESSON TO BE LEARNT

Next time Prince Charles gets married, somebody warn the Pope!

Tuesday 6th July, 2010 - The Lot - Parvt 2

2010-07-08T07:00:00.001+01:00

You'll maybe notice the date confusion! This was supposed to appear Tuesday.....do your best!

If I wasn't so idle this would have been on Monday's posting!.To continue - the last little bit about me hols..

First off I told a fib. We didn't got to Monkey World on Wednesday, it was Tuesday. On Wednesday we wenr to Winchester, which was once the capital of England (not a lot of people know that). and the first place we went there, after the Tourist Information, was of course the Cathedral. I have wanted to visit here for ages. Unfortunately we reckoned without about 50 million schoolkids on class trips- it's almost thr end of term isn't it? Blimey, you couldn't hear yourself think in there. I always thought that the very loudest you spoke in a cathedral was a hushed stage whisper. Oh well, we'll have a better look next time

A thousand years of history, faith and worship are within these walls. Its many treasures include the 12th century Winchester Bible, contemporary sculpture by Anthony Gormley and the grave of Jane Austen.. Heard of her? Pride and Prejudice ,,,,,,Mansfield Park .....Sense and Sensibility.....? Poor old Jane never quite made it as an author in her lifetime. Even her funeral in the cathedral (1817) had to be got out of the way early before the main morning service began so as not to get in anyone's way. If only they'd known.....!

On Thursday we went to Petersfield, the nearest market town. Mistake again! Market Day was Wednesday! It was a nice town though and itself had a pretty church - St. Peter's would you believe.. The Market Square is a lovely place to sit and have coffee (and cake) on an English summer's day. And that's just what we did on this, the last day of our holiday. We sat and watched the world go by.

There was so much we didn't have time for, we'll just have to go back. You know, I often wonder why, apart from the weather, English people want to spend so much time abroad. In the British Isles we've got a little potted history of a fair bit of the world. We owe it to ourselves to see some of it.

xxxxxxx

Wednesday 7th July 2010 - In days of yore............

2010-07-07T07:00:00.001+01:00

Come on, out you come, you're quite safe; I haven't got any photos! I don't think I have anyway.

All this talking about my hols has had its usual effect - it set me thinking about how different hols are now from how they were when we were kids. My German friend, - it's all her fault really. She just happened to mention that she and her mum and 17-year-old son had just paid a nostalgic visit to a place where family holidays were spent in a caravan during the 70's. In all the years I've known Heike, I never knew that. And having known her late father I couldn't imagine him in a caravan at all, let alone one shared with 4 females (wife and 3 daughters). I was completely swept away on a wave of nostalgia.

My dad would rent a caravan in Bridlington on the Yorkshire coast for two weeks each summer. This was in the days when a caravan was just that, a place that was really meant to be dragged along behind a car. It had Calor gas mantels for lighting, a Calor gas stove, no heating and bare linoleum on the floor.   Almost everything you needed had tro be taken along from home - bed linen, blankets, pillows, towels and so on.. Where we went cutlery, pots and pans and such were already there but I know some were not so lucky..   Goodness knows how people managed who had to go by train, and some did!

It was the time of year (usually 'stop fortnight' on the steelworks when production stopped so maintenance could be done) when my dad - just like Heike's I suppose - got stuck into all kinds of things that dad's of the time didn't usually do, not working class dads like mine anyway. I never remember him peeling potatoes (spud bashing)at home or doing the dishes. He did in later years or else mimuther wouldn't let him go to the pub, but not then. Not that he overdid it, like.. Neither did us kids.   But there was men's work and women's work and the two didn't mix - unless it was mimuther going out tatey picking to help the family finances..

It can't have been much of a holiday for mimuther because she srtill had to do everything she did at home but in a much smaller space. Some of it was self-inflicted. I shouldn't think anyone actually SAID she had to sweep the place and dust every day but I suppose it passed the time away while she was waiting for the spuds to boil! There was another thing: she cooked every single day. I don't remember eating out or hacing dfish and chips. We must have done surely but I think it wqas so rare I've forgotten.

Ooh, one year we had a change and went to Mablethorpe on the Lincolnshire coast instead. They hired a bungalow but still had to take sheets, towels etc. Dad's brother and mother came too I remember. It was a great adventure for us kids because we'd never been in a bungalow before. And we had neighbours, just like at home. They were on holiday too and we never saw them again after that but I remember we were all very close for 2 weeks. Maybe the fact that they were just 2 parents and child and we were 2 parents, 3 kids, uncle and Grandma had something to do with it. It must have been a bit squashed up in dad's car after all.

We only went to Mablethorpe that once so it must either have been too expensive or the grown-ups didn't like it or, most likely, the caravan at Brid was booked out. Mind you, Keith and I have been there twice for single days (in 38 years) and the place still holds no charm except (aww go on, just one photo...)

Love to all,

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Monday July 5th 2010 - Now you get the lot!!

2010-07-05T20:42:00.000+01:00

Yes Peeps, here we are. a run-down on my hols. By the way, that's water in that glass.

As my friend, Joan, rightly commented we were indeed near Winchester, England. We hired a cottage for a week at the little village of West Meon in Hampshire which, for the uninitiated, is in the south of England. Now we have only rarely visited the south - northerners don't, you know. They're not like us down there (tee hee - that'll get 'em at it!). They think we're all flat caps and whippets. We think they're unfriendly to a man and earn wads of cash. Maybe that evens up the score a bit - we were all wrong!

We could hardly believe our luck when the sun came out. And when we had to get the sunglasses out and switch on the car's aircon we knew the rumours must be true. We were in for some decent weather. Mentally I was totting up how many more t-shirts I could have packed if I had left out the woolies.

When we eventually found it, the place we stayed at was a beautiful converted stables, all open-plan inside, with plenty of space for me and my turbo wheels, a kind of 'wrap-around stone patio and as much as we liked of a HUGE lawned garden

.It was an idyllic place, miles from anywhere - almost - and on the edge of the beautiful rolling Hampshire countryside of the South Downs. Just what English people abroad come to remember when they think of England, and what other countries are taught IS England. A 'green and pleasant land'. I wonder what they think when they see the completely different but equally beautiful scenery of Yorkshire?

On the following day we found that in the nearby village of Bramdean a village fete was being held. Well we had to go to that didn't we? Can't get much more English than the village fete.

The Plant Stall

On Sunday we decided to have lunch at a local pub that we had heard great things of - and we were not disappointed. We had a superb meal in the sunny back garden. Mein host(ess) pulled a table into the shade for us and we enjoyed a wonderful meal cooked by a chef who really knew his way around! It was quite expensive but it was worth it..

The Thomas Lord (that was the name of the pub) was named after the founder of Lord's cricket ground in London and I must say I thought he must be a son on West Meon. Not so: he was a Yorkshireman - a northerner - from Thirsk. But he spent the last few years of his life at West Meon and is buried in their churchyard so we'll let them have that one!

On Monday we thought a little train trip on the Watercress Line which runs from nearby New Alresford would be nice. Shame it doesn't run on Mondays! Heh heh, now you above isn't my own photo don't you! It is the real train though

Well we thought that was as far as that expedition would go but we did stay longer in Alresford than we first thought. It was a lovely little town - well a middle-sized one maybe. Apparently there used to be some controversy as to the correct spelling and pronunciation of the name. It was alleged to be a spelling mistake by the compilers of the Doomsday Book (see? they did typos then too!) and was properly spelled "Arlesford" and pronounced 'Ahlsford". Now if anyone who happens to know the place is having a good old "she's been had" chortle at this, apply to me for a punch on the nose!

Now this, Monkey World, is a place I have long wanted to visit, ever since there was a TV documentary series about it and on Wednesday off we went. I know they are trying to do their bit towards protecting endangered primates and providing safe havens for abused apes and monkeys, but as a tourist venue I was not altogether impressed. There were plenty of excellent animal enclosures but not much in the way of monkeys to be seen. Me being seated didn't help of course but neither did the steepness and awkwardness of some of the slopes that had to be navigated to get near where you could view. I was so involved in safely navigating very uneveni inclines that I probably missed things I might otherwise have seen. Does anyone remember those little cardboard periscope affairs that kids used to have at one time? What a good idea if they wqere available at places like this for the use of little people. I won't say any more because as far as I know it's a popular attraction..

OK, I think I'll have to leave the rest until tomorrow as this is getting a bit long and I'm going cross-eyed looking at the screen.

Oh, by the way, Marie, our lovely lass at A Year From Oak Cottage, who is away in Canada on her hols, sends her love to everyone. I had a text from her at the weekend and she is thrilled to bits to be seeing her family again.

Reporting back - 4 july 2010

2010-07-04T13:32:00.000+01:00

Here I am again - reporting back after my hols. Now I'm going to tell you all about it, but I need to finish sorting out my photos first. I always have to do that while it's still fresh in my mind where it's a picture of - and more importantly why I took it! Do you find that? You get to loading your pictures and wondering "Now why did I take THAT?" So now I.m quite definite about tagging and captioning. It does take more time though but here's a little taster:

There are no end of clues here - where did we go?

Back soon!

SAaturday 12 June - another Royal Event

2010-06-12T15:43:00.000+01:00

Another Royal occasion had me glued to the telly this morning: the Queen's Birthday Parade and Trooping the Colour. It's held on Horseguards' Parade in London every year to commemorate the monarch's 'Official' birthday. That means the day she was crowned and therefore officially became our Queen. It has nothing to do with the anniversary of her birth, which is 21st April.

Until a few years ago the Queen used to actually take an active part in the proceedings, on horseback whatever the weather, and always riding sidesaddle. Sidesaddle! Both legs on the same side of the horse ! What a brilliant horsewoman she must be. Nowadays she and her husband sit it out on a specially built podium and she uses an open carriage to review the troops assembled before her. Quite right too, she is 84

You know, I watch all this every single year. I never tire of it and never will because each year I learn something I never knew. This time it was that the drum horses - the huge shires that carry two 57lb kettle drums plus a drummer in full regalia and have to be on their ceremonial best behaviour - they are the only animals in the British army that carry an official rank of Major. Not the rider, the horse! Well, I never knew that! I did wonder whether those magnificent animals might be deaf. I couldn't see any ear defenders, though I'm sure they will have had some way of protecting their hearing. How would you like it if somebody was banging on a huge drum - which YOU had to carry - right next to your ears?

A couple of other thoughts occurred too. I wonder how it must be to have two legs the same length? How do the marching soldiers get over the fear of tripping over something? Maybe they never think about it but I think I would have panic attacks about it!

Where there are lots of horses there must be lots of horse poo. As they - men and animals - went marching off the parade ground back to barracks I wondered how they avoided the stuff. Answer: they don't, they March straight through it. No hopping over or round - straight through and nary so much as a wrinkled nose. Even the Queen's open carriage ploughed through a pile of poo. Now if there's anything worse than steaming, sticky horse poo, it's disturbed steaming sticky horse poo! So now you know: the drum horses must be deaf and everyone else has no sense of smell!

How do those on parade manage to decipher the orders that are being belted out? They must have hellish lung capacity, those who do all the shouting. I mean the troopers can hardly say to their neighbour "What did he say?"

Those busbies (tall bearskin hats) must get unbearably hot on a nice day. On the other hand they must weigh a ton if it rains. how do the mums know which one is their son under all that lot?

And haven't they got big feet.........

I wonder what the Queen is having for lunch? If I said I'd love to go, would she invite me? I know which knife and fork to use!

Thursday 1th June 2010 - Royal Event

2010-06-10T10:30:00.000+01:00

Today is the 89th birthday of His Royal Highness the Prince Philllip, Duke of Edinburgh. We wish His Royal Highness Many Happy Returns of the Day.

There, the BBC used to make that announcement but they don't seem to bother any more, so I'm doing it for them. They used to do it for all of the immediate Senior members of the Royal Family. They used to fly the Union Jack on public buildings too and that doesn't happen any more. I wish it did - what a sad sign of the times that we don't even fly our own flag, almost as if we're ashamed of it.

Well I'm not, I'm proud of our flag, of our country and of our Royal Family and proud to stand up and be counted!

Tuesday 8th June

2010-06-08T06:30:00.001+01:00

Look, I'm sorry but you are just going to have to have another dose of Keith's latest project - cooking. Remember I said yesterday about him making scones? OK, here goes:

Scones in the making - yes, he added the bike & car soap!

Et voila - The Finished Product! Not sure what happened with the big one. I think he got fed up with cutting out. They're not very risen but they taste good.

And another little something he rustled up:

I know I joke about the hubster and his cooking but I am impressed really. I think the things he makes are lovely. Even if they weren't, he does at least have a go. He even washes his hands! BEFORE he starts.

Monday 7 June

2010-06-07T10:58:00.001+01:00

THAT MAN is determined on hijacking my blog! I nearly choked on a baked bean this morning when he announced his culinary journey was about to move forward as he progressed from victoria sponges to scones. No, no, that wasn't the cause of my choking. It was when he said he might need me to find him the ingredients because "....you need bike 'n' car soap or summats don't you?" And THAT was what creased me up - I am still cackling. You couldn't make it up could you? He meant,of course, bicarbonate of soda. Even as we speak he is poring over the Be-ro book.

Oh, and lunch is going to be fish pie........I'm keeping out of it!

What I really wanted to mention was our day in Boston last Wednesday. Yes, America, I'm taking you all with me to Boston. Boston, England, that is.

When I look through the pictures I took, not one really does justice to this beautiful town. Fortunately Motherhen at My Simple Rhymes has gone there for a few days so she'll probably do better. Meanwhile, here's one or two of mine............

This chap in the hat, standing on a box with a little table balanced precariously on top was auctioning plants. I constantly expected either him or the table to fall off! Another stall was auctioning bikes. I HOPE they were unclaimed ones from the police station! This whole bit of the market had lots of auctions going on.

If we hadn't known in advance that there are, in fact, 2 markets going on we might have been a bit disappointed with this titchy one. I didn't take any photos of the other one because in my chair I was too low down to snap anything but people's backsides! It was very big and very busy, crawling with people. The sun had brought them out. Surely the kids should have been in school?

There was a lovely memorial garden devoted to military and civilian groups involved in WW2, the Korean War, the Falklands and right up to the present day. No-one, it seemed, had gone unremembered. Quite right too.

This is the place we were really after: St. Botolph's Church, known the world over as Boston Stump. It's probably the most famous landmark in southern Lincolnshire and, it being so high and the terrain being so flat, you can see it from miles around, long before you reach Boston. In fact it's the highest tower of any parish church in England.

You could be forgiven for thinking you were in a cathedral! No-one really knows how it came to be called 'The Stump'. One theory is that the tower was meant to be finished off with a spire. More likely the name reflects its appearance from the flat surrounding Fenland.

The Cotton Connection: John Cotton became Vicar of Boston in 1612. His Puritanism and criticism of the hierarchy drew hostil attention from Church of England authorities. In 1633, following the earlier colonists, he set sail for the Massachusetts Bay Colony and ministered there until his death in 1652. The smallest chapel in the Boston Stump is now named the Cotton Chapel and has benefitted from support both by many Americans and from Cotton's own descendants. The links with Boston Mass go even further: several of the early governors of Massachusetts were former citizens of our Boston, and Anne Bradstreet, wife of one of them, became the New World's first published poetess.

There now, not a lot of people know that! Ta-ta

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Tuesday June 1st, 2010 - something tasty

2010-06-01T14:25:00.000+01:00

Almost half a year gone already. Crikey, we shall be having to think about Christmas again soon! Just thought I'd be the first to mention it.

It's been a holiday weekend here and what a funny old holiday it's been! Cold, wet and very very windy so going somewhere, other than maybe the Caribbean, was not an option. Eating was the next best thing and, as we're nearing the end of the all-too-short asparagus season, I concocted the following soup. It's not a hearty winter soup but a lovely delicately flavoured summer lunch dish. As I invented it and I don't have a lot of imagination for naming things, I call it asparagus and lemon soup.

what you need:
250g bunch asparagus
1 lemon (grated rind of all of it and juice of half)
2 cloves garlic (crushed)
50g butter (salted or unsalted)
2 good tsp Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon
1 pint boiling water
2 tbls single cream
Salt and fresh ground black pepper (to taste)

what you do:
1. Put the butter and crushed garlic in a pan over the lowest possible heat

2. While that's melting and infusing, cut your asparagus, tips as well, into
roughly 1" pieces.

3. Add asparagus to pan and stir to coat with garlicky butter and add grated lemon rind.

4. Keeping over lowest heat, put lid on pan so you just gently sweat the veg.

5. When the asparagus gives only a slight resistance to a skewer, set lid aside and add lemon juice,

6. Pour in 1pint of water in which you have mixed the vegetable bouillon, replace over low heat, without a lid, and cook gently until asparagus is cooked.

7. Using your food processor, blender or stick blender, process until smooth.

8. Return it to the pan and heat very gently but DO NOT BOIL. Then turn off the heat, stir in 2 tbls single cream (or Elmlea as I did), adjust seasoning and serve with warm crusty rolls.

This will serve 2 as a stand-alone lunch dish or 4 as a starter to a light follow-on (we had tuna and salad) .

This is so quick you could be eating it half an hour after you thought of it!

Sorry, no photographs of it - it was gone before I realised it was that good!

Saturday 29 May 2010

2010-05-29T19:53:00.001+01:00

This is the very last mention I am going to make of my recent unexpected stay in hospital and the only reason for the mention is that Keith has pointed out I forgot to tell you something. I'm beginning to wonder whose blog this is!

Anyway, I forgot to list, under all his other wondrous activities, this..........

........an almost empty laundry basket.

And this......... a completely empty ironing basket! Yes the little paragon even did all the washing and ironing as well. Heh heh I don't know how long it is since I've seen the bottom of this basket.

What about a Golden Pinney Award ? He can even have a red carpet to parade on - as long as he hoovers it himself!!

It looks as though my Blogger Dashboard has been hi-jacked again, this time by someone calling themselves euroangel graffitti. They're a pest aren't they?

Just a short entry!

Friday 28th May - She's Back!

2010-05-28T13:48:00.000+01:00

Well first of all many thanks to all you lovely lot who cared about me while I've been in hospital. I hadn't planned on going in, it just sort of happened a week ago yesterday. I had spent the previous 2 nights having shivering fits and then found I couldn't stand up. Quite scary but, I hope, sorted now. I just have to keep taking the tablets and breathing the puffers.

But if I thought Keith might waste away from me not being there to do the housewifely things, I soon thought again. He first of all came to visit boastng about what he made for his lunch that day

For the uninitiated, we call this Toad in the Hole; the very best Lincolnshire sausages cooked in Yorkshire Pudding. Would this be Fusion Food?

And here's how it looked on the plate...............

I know this was just dished up with some new potatoes and a tin of peas and gravy made with gravy granules - but let's not be snobby about this plate of food; I would have killed for it!!!! I wonder what happened to the rest of it?

Nothing daunted, when he visited next day THIS is what he'd made:

Which became THIS

Then THIS

AND FINALLY................

Cottage pie topped off with a thick layer of cheddar cheese.

And he didn't stop there! Oh no! He arrived one afternoon carrying a beautiful Victoria Sponge cake with buttercream and strawberry jam, the like of which many a W.I. lady would wish they had made. Have an ogle at this it's all that's left after we all had a bit). I've seen neater but I've not had tastier.

He even brought some picnic plates!

No secrets in hospital are there? Everybody and his wife and dog wants to know your date of birth. Apparently it's supposed to be some guard against getting the wrong patient. Well let me just tell you, all you get on your wristband these days is your name, NHS number, date of birth and barcode. So if there's all the required information there already what's in the barcode? Eh, Eh?

Another thing you have to announce to the world is whether or not you've 'had your bowels opened' today, which is nurse-speak for 'have you been to the toilet?', 'have you done a number 2?'. Thankfully, you don't have to provide evidence.

And all the health and safety they have to think about these days. No flowers on the ward any more. Oh no, someone might be allergic or have hay fever. Patients can't read the newspaper because the paper boy can't go on the ward now for fear his filthy cargo might import some MRSA or something. You can have mucky old visitors as long as they clean their hands with those squirty things outside the ward door. THEIR HANDS indeed, as if that's the muckiest thing about them. Strictly speaking Keith shouldn't have shared that cake out but as some of the nurses had a bit as well that would cancel out any ill-effects. It must have been more by luck than design that we were all OK

And they are prevented by law from restraining anybody, even if it's for their own good like, presumably. stopping them falling out of bed.

I think I'm sorriest about the flowers. Everywhere is so drab without flowers.

Wednesday 19 May

2010-05-19T11:43:00.000+01:00

I am incensed - don't worry, this will be very short and not at all sweet!

I heard on the news yesterday that a Pakistani man had been jailed for plotting terrorist activities here in England. Now I don't mind Pakistanis at all as long as they speak our language and work for their living and pose no threat to us, their benefactors. Let's be clear about that . But I do take umbrage when the judge refuses to deport the bloke back to Pakistan "in case he gets tortured".

Know what? I don't care!

Monday 17 May 2010 Busy Weekend

2010-05-17T13:55:00.001+01:00

Something is preying on my mind. We've turned into a regular pair of little Fagins - WE ARE SHOPLIFTERS

Yesterday when we got home from the garden centre (of which more later) we found that they hadn't charged us for these little outdoor stone doorstops. I just wanted them so the conservatory doors don't get caught by the wind. one's a stone with a frog on and the other has a bird. I was all for going back and fessing up but Keith said "No, they missed it." Well he's right, they did, but all the same..........I wonder what they would have said if we'd gone back? Shall I ring them up?

On Saturday we made the first of our 'show' visits for this year. This was Alford Food Fair. I have to say I was a bit disappointed that it was so small - only about a dozen stalls including the ice cream van! However Alford itself was a pretty little place and it was a lovely day so we went walkabout a bit.

This is actually a photo of what appeared to be a delightful thatched cottage but as someone had plonked those revolting brown gates in front of it you can't see that much. I took the photo of it though because it was down what I always see in my mind's eye when I think of "leafy English country lane". Uber-privat property I guess!

And how about this: a closed down and shuttered up thatched village pub. The sign tells you that if you have 5,000 quid to spare as a bond you could have this place and run it rent free including overheads (whatever they are). Sounds like a bargain to me.

From Alford, where we only stayed a couple of hours, we went to the nearest east coast town, Mablethorpe, only about 10 miles away. Some of you may remember me rambling on about Cleethorpes....Well Mablethorpe is even worse! It has moved to the top of my list of "Most Boring Seaside Towns". Its greatest claim to fame seems to be its featuring in a DH Lawrence novel "Sons and Lovers"

Mablethorpe is the destination for the Morel family's first holiday in the D. H. Lawrence novel, Sons and Lovers, published in 1913. "At last they got an answer from Mablethorpe, a cottage such as they wished for thirty shillings a week. There was immense jubilation. Paul was wild with joy for his mother's sake. She would have a real holiday now. He and she sat at evening picturing what it would be like. Annie came in, and Leonard, and Alice, and Kitty. There was wild rejoicing and anticipation. Paul told Miriam. She seemed to brood with joy over it. But the Morel's house rang with excitement."

I wish I hadn't given the book away now, quite fancy re-reading it.

Even the fish and chips was a disappointment: cardboard chips and tasteless fish. I should have known really when the only dish that specified the type of fish was "Plaice and chips". Neither cod nor haddock were named so I suppose we just got whatever passed for "fish and chips" that day. You expect better at the seaside.

All that said, Mablethorpe is sort of quaint:

This is about the closest we get to a beach house in this country - a beach hut. You-re not allowed to sleep there but they're great for eating your picnic in a howling gale. There's even a sink in there for doing the washing up! And an electric point so you don't need a thermos!

And, if you can't stand the bracing sea breezes any more, open the back door of your 'beach house' to a beautiful view - on a nice day - of the putting green. You might like to note it was in danger of becoming a not quite so nice day!

Do either of these pictures shriek "English Seaside town"?

Clues: donkeys, winter coats on the beach, sad little figures not quite in the sea, absence of sunbathers

Having slagged Mablethorpe off big-time I must say that, though it is a horrible place itself, it IS in a beautiful part of the country, Specially if you want somewhere reasonably flat. Its only nod at wobbly scenery is a very gently undulating landscape. The result of the flatness is that you can see for a very long way. This made it the ideal county in WW2 for air bases. Some of you in America may well have had members of your family based here in the war. Some of the bases still exist as RAF stations. Some don't but many are still in use as civilian airfields, or simply as green field sites.

Now then, absolutely finally, a teensy weensy RANT. How many more home delivery pizza, indian and Chinese food and fish and chip shop leaflets do I have to put up with? So far today there have been 4 and we get them every single day of the week, even Sundays. There's always a clutch of them in the local free newspaper. Sometimes we get 3 or 4 in a week from the same place!

Rant over. Ta-ta.

xxx

Sunday 9th May 2010

2010-05-09T18:25:00.000+01:00

First of all I want to thank you all so much for keeping my nephew, Kevin, in your thoughts and prayers. He had his surgery last Thurday and although a tumour was removed from his spine it was found to be benign and so not cancerous. Thank God eh? I don't know how long he'll be in hospital but if I had just come that far I wouldn't much care!

I just left a comment on Marie's Oak Cottage blog about how I really hate chicken wings. It set me thinking of other things I totally dislike.........

Chicken legs - nope, you never can tell when you might eat something horrid (bit of gristle or sinew or maybe some skin). In fact when I come to think of it, the only bit I DO like is chicken breast with all bones and skin removed. Then I'll do whatever you like with it, short of eating it raw - boil it, poach it, grill it, fry it, roast it, put it in a pie or a casserole or a curry. Keith used to work at the chicken factory in town and said that no part of a chicken was wasted. Someone, somewhere in the world will eat the bits we won't even look at, even the feet and the beak,   YEUK!!

Blue - not as in blue and white china, that's lovely, nor a nice rich navy blue or royal blue. but a brilliant sky blue like you see in the........sky. I do actually like the sky to be that colour but let's leave it there in its rightful place. Let's not paint the walls with it. And let's not team it with yellow.

Whingers - which, for those whose first language is not "English" English, are people who are always moaning about something; always complaining about things that don't matter in the great scheme of things.   Break a finger nail, forget something at the shops, get their hair wet, miss the bus - the sky won't fall in!

Butterflies - yes, maybe it's me that's odd because most people adore them. But honestly, I hate them, I'm terrified of them (and moths) and I would sooner stick pins in my eyes than stay in the same room as one of the vile, flappy creatures. Can you believe that I can actually smell if a place has moths in it? Truly, there is a 'mothy' smell. I can't describe it any better. It's not like anything, just a horrible, pungent pong.

Mess - I really don't like the place being a mess - and if my sis is reading this and DARES to laugh I may have to sue her! I used to keep reasonably on top of it but since I've been mostly in my wheelchair I have to sit and watch things getting less than I would like them to be. The ironing, for example, tends to pile up, not so much because I can't do it (though it does take me much longer than it normally would), but because I can't get the ironing board out of the cupboard and put it in the kitchen. That being so, a small pile soon becomes a big pile. How I would love to sometimes go outside and sweep the paths around the house. It would be lovely to be able to buff up our wooden floors now and again; or clean the glass shower cubicle properly; or pull out the stove to clean under and behind it. A thousand things that need to be done but I can't really tell anyone but you, dear readers. I can't expect Keith to do any more than he already does and friends and family have enough of their own to see to.   WHOA - WHOA - THIS IS WHINGING!

xxxx

Monday 26 April

2010-04-26T16:00:00.000+01:00

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........

2010-04-25T18:36:00.000+01:00

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

2010-04-24T19:25:00.000+01:00

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

2010-04-20T19:15:00.000+01:00

"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

2010-04-09T07:00:00.001+01:00

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

2010-04-08T08:49:00.000+01:00

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!!!!!!

Tuesday 30 March 2010 - Spring is when the pretty colours come out

2010-03-30T08:15:00.001+01:00

WHAT WAS I SAYING ON SUNDAY ABOUT CREATURES CADGING A LIFT?
This lot were in the conservatory!

The others kindly hopped aside while I took this picture, but then.........

They obligingly lined up for a group photo before...........

Hopping back on board to go meet the lovely....

Yel--l-o-w kitchen curtains - WHO DECREED THAT THE KITCHEN SHOULD TURN BLUE!!!!!!

Sunday 28th March - Today there will be no interruptions!

2010-03-28T15:32:00.000+01:00

'allo, 'allo, 'allo - what's going on here then? Right outside our conservatory door? Frogs or toads? There is a way to tell but I don't know what it is. Anyway, one is obviously very very tired and is being given a ride home by the other one. I hope they don't live far. They're toads I think - they look very green. Frogs are more sort of brown aren't they?

We have other kind creatures in our garden too. Well, on our roof actually. There's a couple of pigeons and they play at chase for hours. There they go, sidestepping along the ridge tiles and - guess what? One of them always gets worn out and has to have 5 minutes and the other one is always kind enough to lend her back like a feathery sofa.

We had one of these the other day. Now I know it doesn't look much in the photo so you'll probably just have to take my word for it that it is, in fact, a young kestrel hawk. Well, it was next doors who thought that. Keith's seen it before and thought it was a baby eagle (snigger snigger) and I must say I've often seen something flying around that I thought was some sort of hawk but then I though "Naw naw, not round here"

It looks as if it's having a breather from flying doesn't it? Maybe it can catch a lift home too............

Since last I wrote here Keith has been busy, busy, busy. For goodness sake he's supposed to have retired! Our bedroom and the dining room have been redecorated, the outside walls of the entire house have been re-rendered and painted and now - AND NOW FOLKS - it's the turn of the back yard. He's jack-hammering up the 9" thick solid concrete so he can block pave it (you know, sort of like bricks that you make posh driveways with ). I tell you, this constant drilling is giving me a right headache; Heaven knows how it is for him, he's right on top of it! He has to get it done today though because the jack hammer has to go back tomorrow. Oh, and sure enough he already found a complication: there's a collapsed drain that has to be dealt with . It never rains but it pours!

Above you can see his ever growing mountain of rubble. this is what our back yard is being reduced to! And it's free to a good home. To any home at all.

Me, I shall inflict myself on my sister tomorrow. She has got a nice house where they don't have noise and there's a big kitchen where I hope she might even feed me.

After 25 years - maybe 26 - I have finally decided I need a new food processor. It hasn't conked out. That's part of the problem: I don't think it ever will! It just looks so thoroughly disreputable now. It never looks clean and I'm afraid some of the 'nooks and crannies' stuff that won't come out might actually get in the food. Is it a record to run a food processor that old? Just for the record it's Braun Multipractic and it owes me not one penny. And Braun may now send me some freebies if it wants to!

Our Sally hasn't been too well this month. For those who don't know, Sally is our dog and she's 16, of indeterminate breed and beautiful. I can't show you a photo of her because she is very camera-shy. I thought we might get a photo with the new camcorder but she had that one figure out before I got the battery charged! Anyhow, she's not her usual ebbulient self. She sleeps most of her time, drinks gallons and her coat is a mess. But she still has the sparkle in her eye that says she's glad to see us and she still spends a few minutes each day acting the goat so life is still good for her.

Watch out, Chester - Marie from Oak Cottage will be there soon (you lucky people). I expect this will be a bitter-sweet week for Marie and her husband Todd, a week of 'last times' to do things before they start the new chapter in their lives later on this week. Pay her blog a visit and leave her a cheery word of encouragement to keep her going until she gets there. This past few weeks has been a real time of testing for them both and I hope they'll be gloriously happy in their new home.

Do you know, I haven't heard that jack hammer for - oooh - it must be 10 minutes now. He'd better not be slacking!

Tues. 2nd March 2010 - Little Whiskey

2010-03-02T21:46:00.001Z

See this? This is next door's dog, Poor Little Whiskey. Well, they just call him Whiskey. He's a cross between a Yorkshire terrier and a shi'tzu (gosh, I do hope I spelt that right!). Just a puppy - about 15 or 16 weeks old I should think. A yappy little bundle with a heck of a woof. Loves to play - don't they all at that age?

AND OUR SALLY, THE WHIMP, IS TERRIFIED OF HIM!

She is many times bigger than him, She would flatten him if she accidentally sat on him.. And she won't go out for a wee if he's out.

His pack leader, as she has styled herself, passed him to me over the fence the other day so I could have a cuddle of him (he's that sort of dog) and our Sal went slinking off into the bedroom and wouldn't come back until he had gone. When she did come back she was very obviously miffed with me. If you have ever lived with a dog you'll know what I mean when I say she gave me some right old-fashioned looks, as if I'd stood in something interesting that she would love a sniff at but won't come near.

Oh no! First the camera, now a ickle-wickle puppy! It'll be spiders next.

Keith has announced his next project.   It's Keefy's Patent Drinking fountain for hedgehogs. All will be revealed no doubt!

Sunday 28th Feb 2010 - Waste Not Want Not Pea Soup

2010-02-28T17:59:00.000Z

Well Keith reigns triumphant again! Not just one packet of green split peas (Jasper: yes you have mistaken peas for .......... something else!) but two! That should ensure pea soup for the foreseeable! This is my Waste Not Want Not Pea Soup.

You really need to have cooked some smoked ham the day before. What I do is cover it with cold water, about 2 litres, bring it to the boil then simmer it for an hour. That done, lift it into a roasting pan, remove the skin (but leave the fat on) and roast it, uncovered, gas mark 6 for 30 minutes. Don't throw that precious water away that you boiled the ham in because the next thing you do is cook your potatoes in it - a few more than you need for eating with the ham - until they're tender. With a slotted spoon take out what you need for that meal and leave the remainder in the water. Well, stock really. When your pan of stock and potatoes is cold stick it in the fridge: that's one less pan to wash up today! Keep the beautiful remnants of smoked ham too.

Before you go to bed put about 5 ounces green split peas in a basin. Cover them with cold water, stick them in the fridge too and go get a good night's sleep.

Now, next day is SOUP DAY. Get your pan of stock and spuds out and your dish of soaked peas. Drain the peas into a colander (you can let that water go - though it might do for watering your plants if you really don't want to waste it.) and rinse them well. Tip them into the stock pan, along with a couple of cloves of garlic and a chopped onion - red in my case, there being somewhat of a glut(!) - and the lean remains of your smoked ham roast, cut tiny.

Onto the stove with it, bring it to the boil, with the lid on, then let it all simmer away merrily for about 50 minutes or so, stirring occasionally, until the peas are tender. Note that I said "Bring it to the boil", not let it boil (she said, sternly)!

OK? At this point it looks horrid. If you've got a stick blender you might like to plug it in now and use it to make this pan of mush and juice into a pan of lovely thick soup. Otherwise you.ll have to do it in batches in a food processor or a blender. If the worst comes to the worst use a potato masher to squash all the lumpy bits.

Taste it - more seasoning? Salt and pepper it to your own taste and just to be posh serve it with a swirl of cream, but you want the over-riding flavour to be the peas and smoked ham with a certain je ne sais quoi.. And if you can find any of THAT in a shop, you're a better man than I Gunga Din!

Friday 26 Feb 2010

2010-02-26T17:36:00.000Z

Even as we speak - in a manner of speaking - Keith is out on a hunt for green split peas. I always see them in supermarkets when I don't need any. Today I do. The fate of tomorrow's lunch hangs in the balance. Today is roast smoked ham with potatoes, sugarsnaps and asparagus (frozen I'm afraid) and a red onion sauce. Tomorrow is home made pea and ham soup - depending on the current pea crisis.

Later........ Lunch was nice, except of course the onion sauce was a pale pink colour. Well it would be wouldn't it, using red onions? Why did I do that? 2 reasons: to see what happened and because they were 2kg for the price of 1kg. So we've got to have red onions in everything just now so they don't go to waste!

As usual with his shopping expeditions Keith just HAD to bring back something else. Today it was a Snuggie. People in England will have seen them advertised on telly but I don't know about anyone else.

This is a Snuggie and I'm under there somewhere! It's a huge fleecy lightweight blanket with armholes in it for keeping you warm while you read or watch telly or do your knitting. What a grand idea!

Our camera-shy Sally is actually there in this photo. Unfortunately she fled behind the chair so you'll have to imagine her. Her bed is just down there by my right foot and as she was just having her pre-prandial nap I thought I might just catch the old sleepy head. But no, even though I had Keith sneaking around with that camera, the instant he switched it 'on' she fled. How does she know, she's deaf! Our camera must smell.

How do they do it eh? Why do all household appliances seem to pack up at the same time? The cooker has been on the blink for quite a while but it wasn't unsafe so I still use it. The washing machine has been conking out programme by programme for a couple of years. Soon we'll only be left with 60* and Boil - you can't treat woolens like that can you? Just this week Keith noticed the TV on switch sometimes works and sometimes not so now that has to be left on stand-by, which we don't normally do so as to do our bit for the environment. Lightbulbs too......one out, all out!

I'm not usually one for playing music of any sort at home. In fact it drives me mad and I hate it in the car too. Give me a quiz show or news programme, otherwise leave me to the wonderful sound of silence. There is one voice though which I never tire of: Susan Boyle. That lovely sound, clear as a bell and you can tell every word she sings. I hope someone will tell me when she brings out her second album.

That's me for today! Have a lovely weekend.

Mon 15 Feb 2010

2010-02-15T22:55:00.000Z

I was sad to hear today of the death of author Dick Francis CBE. I'm not a follower of horse racing, nor a gambler, but I do love a rattling good who-dun-it. And though Dick Francis' novels were mostly set somewhere in the racing world, there never seemed to me to be any 'sameness' about them. I'll always be able to find room for him on my bookshelves.

Why is it that when my hairdresser comes to the house, the whole world and his wife and dog come to visit? Just after she arrived Keith's friend, Ron, came in and he and Keith stood there in the kitchen having a high old time drinking coffee and chortling as my head got fuller and fuller with bits of aluminium foil. It's rare for Ron to stay for more than about half an hour so he must have been enjoying himself today. Bless him!

While we all sat there, me with a frozen foil-wrapped head, waiting for my colour to take, Mimuvver and sis arrived. Of course I would mormally make some tea and sit with them and put the world to rights but today was different because I had to sit there, quietly developing. I know exactly how a turkey feels on Christmas Day now!

When my head was safely stuck under the tap Ron left. Mimuvver and sis stayed to see the Great Shearing then they went too. Later on that afternoon,just as I was about to start cooking our meal, our friends Ingrida (the bride in my sidebar photo) and Regan turned up with their two wedding CD's to watch.

I bet you we won't see a solitary soul now for weeks. Our visitors are like buses: you wait ages for one then 3 come all at once!

Sis and I were messaging on Skype last evening, talking about the more disgusting element of my last entry: bottom burps. We came to a conclusion that animals must be politer than us because you can't hear them, only have this general all-pervading pong emanating from their direction. We reckoned without horses! They must be the loudest bottom burpers in the business............unless, of course, you know different?

Sunday 14 Feb 2010

2010-02-14T18:37:00.000Z

D'you know what? - oh er Happy Valentines Day by the way - it has come to my attention that we Brits are laughed at FOR BEING TOO POLITE.

Who would have thought it? I watch Benidorm you know and I thought quite the oppoaite was true but apparently not.. We're always saying please and thank you, sorry and excuse me. When we learn how to address our teachers, it's ".please, miss" We are taught from a young age that we must say "excuse me" or "pardon" if our bodies make noises other than we would wish them to.

In fact we do take this to daft extremes don't we. I mean, how many times have you burped when you're alone and saie "Oooh, pardon". You're on your own for goodness' sake! Just whose pardon are you begging? Do you put your hand over your mouth if you yawn when no-one's there? So do I!

And if our coat sleeve brushes against someone else's as we pass in a doorway we have a real sorry fit: "Oh sorry, please excuse me, I do beg your pardon.......". Yes, I'm beginning to see why foreigners think we're a bit odd!

Keith is at it again. I told you before when he starts with "I've been thinking........," he's dangerous. Dangerous Keith. And it's usually going to cost. Since I last wrote he has redecorated our bedroom

He's hung new door between the dining room and conservatory, complete with a little brass stick so I can undo the little bolt at the top.

He's organised for a dealer of some sort to put into his saleroom some items we want to sell

And straight after those items have gone from the house he's going to redecorate the dining room. I can't keep up! Oh, and brace yourself mum, he's coming to see to the redecoratrion of your spare room! And sis, if you appen to read this, you heard it here first!!!

lots of love,

xxx

It's been a While so................

2010-01-30T18:21:00.001Z

Well, when I got up this morning there was a dusting of snow. Just a dusting, it was. So little, in fact, I wondered if it might just be a hard frost. No, snow it turned out to be and it was c-o-l-d.. Now it's lovely sunshine and the snow dust has all gone. Pity really as we had promised ourselves a trip to the Farmers' Market a few miles away to look at the pinched faces and frozen breath of the stall holders. The laugh was on us: the market was LAST Saturday!

I did a Very Brave Thing yesterday: downloaded Skype. Technophobia kicked in big time as the mere word "download" scares the pants off me. "So simple," said my sister, airily, many times. "We can keep in touch even better," said my German friend Heike "And for free! Dead easy." So, in for a penny in for a pound, and it did indeed turn out to be easy. There was just a little thing right at the start that was puzzling me so I thought I'd ask sis. "Oh, I don't know," she said, "Our Kate (her daughter) did mine...." Ha! so anyway, I just ploughed on. Having installed it I decided to give Heike a video call just to see if I could. Well I could see her but she couldn't see me and I wondered why that was. "Oh, I don't know," she said (huh? Deja-vu here!) "I'll get Julius (her son)..........". Now I'm wondering what it is about being past 50 that causes the brain to go into meltdown at the mention of Technology. Or why computers decline to co-operate.

Keith is beavering away right this minute redecorating our bedroom. I would cook him some lunch but I don't want to interrupt or else the new carpet will arrive before he gets done. I don't know how to tell our poor old Sally that she has to sleep somewhere else when her dad has finished the job. Unless she can promise me that not one hair of hers will make contact with the carpet.

Which reminds me, speaking of Sally, she had her annual vet check last Tuesday and was declared in good nick for her age. All the 38 years we've been married we've had dogs. Only ever one at a time because we never had the space for more.

First there was Shan, a dobermann who only lived to 2 years old. His rear end became paralysed and he couldn't walk. In those days, the early 70's, we in this country persisted in the barbaric practise of tail docking where breed standard called for it. And in the case of dobermanns it did. That's what the vet believed started Shan's paralysis: an infection of his spinal cord which had lain dormant since his tail was removed. We never again had anything but waggy tails in our house.

After Shan came Juggy Singh, a big German Shepherd who came to us complete with heavy metal chain, thick, iron-studded leather collar and green-slimey aluminium bucket to drink from. A Sikh bloke Keith worked with turned up on our doorstep and gave us the lot saying "You like dog, you have him," before turning on his heel and driving off. With his half a dozen kids and assorrted grandparents and aunties all living in the same 2-bedroomed house, the only place Juggy had was a much too tiny kennel in the tiny concrete backyard. I know about the kennel because the ex-dad came back next day and dumped it! Well, it did for firewood! What else could we do? Juggy became a wonderful friend, companiion and beloved protector and died 8 years later.

Sophie was a 7 week old yellow labrador puppy who joined us on 7th January 1979, my birthday. Just shows how good Keith is at keepimg secrets: he had chosen Sophie the previous November when she first came into the world but never mentioned it until he turned up at my office to collect me and said he had "brought a friend to see me too" and produced this tiny, fast-asleep ball of fur from inside his coat. She was always a silly bundle of laughs. Her hobby was collecting things. I would put socks on the radiator to dry on washday and she would take a big sweep along the radiator and run round the garden with a load of socks sprouting from the sides of her mouth. Unfortunately she decided one day to 'collect' a tee shirt, unbeknown to me. I saw her straining in the back garden (this is horrible, this) and I could see something just hanging under her tail.(I told you it was horrible) and when I investigated I pulled out (don't say I didn't warn you) not the handkerchief I thought it was but a whole tee shirt. How on earth she got that lot down we'll never know and what damage it could have done I shudder to think but she was none the worse for it.

Sheppy was another soon-to-be-homeless waif. Again, it was somebody Keith worked with who owned him (he worked with some funny folk). Sophie had died not long since and I had said, as you do, that I didn't want any more dogs. Losing them was too hard. Keith said "Well we'll just go see this dog....NOT TO BRING IT HOME, no, no, no...." Famous last words! We went to where he was about to be chucked out of and there he was - the most gorgeous rough collie (Lassie dog). His dad was a little guy only about 5'3" whhile his mum was tall and willowy. She had decided taking this powder puff (her words) out for a walk was not good for his image a\nd she wanted him to have a nice fierce Rottie. And a tatoo. But it soon transpired there was another reason: Sheppy was a killer! Oh yes he was! They had this budgie who was a great friend of the dog's and used to walk along on the floor behind him: dog moved, budgie moved. And so it was they had both stopped one day, the budgie close up behind the dog - 'dogging' his footsteps as you might say. Sheppy took a step backwards and stood on his best friend, squashing him. Mortified, he picked the budgie up and gently laid him at mum's feet. By the time this stage of the story was reached I was nearly weeing myself trying not to laugh. Well that beautiful dog just had to come and live with us. Of them all he was probably the best behaved dog we ever had. Terrified of cats and any vehicle with air brakes that go "pshshsht". Come to think of it, cats do that don't they?

And so to Sally, our jolly geriatric. She's a Heinz 57 big time and from the strays' home! But she's arguably the most intelligent of them all. Sheppy was thick as two short planks when it came to finding things but Sally, blind and deaf though she now is, has a heck of a nose. If I won't give her a biscuit you'll find her head down, bum up looking under the dresser and reaching with her front paws. So funny! At 16 she's still going strong. Long may she continue.

Gosh I really have rambled on a bit here so I'll go watch telly now.

xxx

Weds 20th January

2010-01-20T18:39:00.000Z

Isn't that nice eh? Our Sally (aka The Dog) just came along and rested her head on my lap and stared lovingly at me for about 5 minutes. Not very long you might think but, with an attention span like Sally's, it might as well be all day.

There was nothing she wanted, had already eaten, been for a wee and a woopsie outside, wasn't interested in being cuddled or sweet-talked. Just wanted to gaze at me. To have a creature that loves you so much that she wants nothing more than to look at you with liquid brown eyes. It's an honour and a blessing.

I know un-doggy folk say that dogs ALWAYS have some ulterior motive for displays of affection. They say that dogs don't have the capacity to love. If you are an un-doggy person you will say we human dog-mums attribute too much human emotion to our dogs. I can see where you're coming from.

But you're wrong.

xxx

Sat. 16 Jan 2010

2010-01-16T22:09:00.000Z

Well one thing you can be sure of: I'm glad I never made any rash promises about posting every day in 2010. It's probably just as well really or none of us would ever get round to reading them all, never mind commenting.

Yesterday I went to the dentist for my 6-monthly check up. You have to do that... have to go...in order to keep your NHS dental registration up to date. If you don't you'll be cast adrift, set aside, sidelined. No messing about, no second chances, that - is - it, make your own way! Dentists who will take on National Health Service patients are like gold dust and your average man-in-the-street can't afford private treatment. So if you're not registered and you get a toothache........prepare to suffer.

Keith keeps up his registration too even though he has not a tooth in his head because they check your mouth for signs of anything nasty, like cancer, that you might not notice. He goes annually but even so............he does sometimes wonder whether he, the Toothless One, is taking up a space that somebody with teeth might need.

£16.50 it costs and that covers the check-up and a scale and polish - even if you're toothless! Keith still has to pay £16.50 even though he has no tussie pegs to scrub up. He just drops his in a bath of Steradent every night and Bob's your uncle!

Not very fair, is it?

Different topic now. Hair. My whole life I have lived with hair that is a permanent mess: "have you combed your hair today?", "isn't it time you had that lot cut off?". Lately A Truth has dawned on me: I got the wrong head, a bloke was meant to have it. I know chaps who spend HOURS in front of a mirror trying to get hair like mine. They wax it and wet it and gel it and spray it, all to get it to look as if they just got out of bed. My question is this: Does any guy out there want to swap. My hair is in a perfect bed-head the very second I get up and it stays like it all day without any chemical assistance. An organic bed head you might say. You can squirt it with water, stick a hat on it......comb it all you like.........hang it out the window in a force 9 gale. It'll be perfect. You too could have hair that looks as if it's been cut with blunt scissors while your finger's stuck in an electric socket.

See you soon

xxxxxx

Friday 8 Jan 2010 - a quick p.s.

2010-01-08T15:04:00.000Z

I should have kept my mouth shut: all is not as well as I thought. The gas boiler has just packed up! Oh for crying out loud, they still have to open doors and things yet. I rang the gas company and they have promised an engineer tomorrow. This is where the wheelchair comes in handy. If I wasn't disabled we would have had to wait until next week! Now I am seriously worried about the water pipes freezing up overnight with no heating to keep them flowing.

xxx

Fri 8 January 2010 - mission accomplished

2010-01-08T13:19:00.000Z

Eeeeh by gum, it's cold. It made my birthday yesterday a bit of a non-event really because I couldn't get out to see anyone and they couldn't come and see me. There was no birthday cake because there was no-one to eat it. Even our nice lunch out had to be put off. The postman made it though so there were cards. Phone calls too. Chatting to Mimuther, we were reminicing how dad would have enjoyed telling everyone who would listen about how it was just such a winter as what we're having now when I was born. He would gleefully relate how he walked the ten miles from our village to the maternity home only to be presented with the ugliest baby you ever did see. And that from a guy who was supposed to love me!

Dad used to be a great one for nonsense ditties. Here's one I'd never heard before, as told by Mimuther:

Down came his sleeves up,
Off came his jacket on;
He missed the train that he got on ,
He won't come now, he's sure to.

I'll never do this again. I didn't know when I agreed a date for work to start that we would be in the worst winter we've had for decades. On Monday this week (4th) the workmen came to begin removing and replacing our windows and doors. It was already a snowstorm at 9am but on they went and "off came their jackets on" and out came the old brown window frames and in went lovely white ones. Over the course of the week they've done all of them and I must say I'm impressed; not just with the product but with the workmen. They even sent me a birthday card!

It's going to look super when the outside walls have been done in white but that really will have to wait for better weather! One thing's for sure, having seen the work involved I'm glad now that the other people let us down because I really don't think they were up to the job.

See this screwed up old newspaper? This is what had been stuffed in where mastic filler should have been in the old windows! You can't see it but it was dated 1967. Talk about a botched job!

But at last it's done and your hair doesn't get blown about by the draught from the windows. Well maybe I'm exaggerating......BUT NOT MUCH!!!

xxx

Sunday 3 Jan 2010 - I am a duffer

2010-01-04T11:53:00.000Z

WHO SAID CROCHET WAS EASY??? Come on, 'fess up. It never is. You need 3 hands - at least. One to hold the hook in one of the two prescribed positions; one to have the wool wrapped around the fingers somehow or other; the third to scroll down the instructions with your mouse. You could really do with a fourth in case the phone rings.

I managed , over the course of 2 or 3 hours, to do a 6" 'foundation' row. Then it got complicated talking about slip stitches and double crochet ...... and I couldn't keep the wool taut ..... and I kept loosing hold of the dangly bit that I was supposed to be keeping hold of. I give up. I can't do it. Well I probably could if I did nothing else for days and days but frankly I can't be arsed. Pardon my language but such is the power of a crochet hook on a non-artist. I'd rather darn socks!

Enough of that I'll just have to BUY a few dish cloths and be done with it!

I got some good books at Christmas, which was just as well as I was wondering where the next read was coming from. I was down to reading some more of Gloria Hunniford's autobiog. My apologies to Gloria in case anyone knows her but I just do not like that book. The one I've just finished is Pam Ayres' "Surgically Enhanced", and I cackling away at her CD's as we speak. She became very popular as a poet and raconteuse in the '70s after she won a TV talent contest (nothing at all like X-Factor). I'm not sure how far across the world her fame spread at the time - not far probably - but I liked her then and I do now. Her poems and stories are incredibly funny. Poignant too sometimes.
Nothing that needs too much thinking about.

Alan Bennett's next. A gentle humour here, he's mostly a playwright and I can get lost in what he writes. We all know his characters: they're our mums or grans or the woman up the street's second cousin twice removed! This little volume starts off on the assumption that we all secretly think the Queen is just 'one of us' at heart.

This will be only the second of Jodie Picoult's I've read. The first was "!Handle with Care" which centred on a family coping with a child who has my own condition - osteogenesis imperfecta - and which was written using multiple narrative voices. It was a very good book and I think I shall enjoy this one just as much.
I'm saving Patricia Cornwell 'til last. I just adore her Scarpetta novels. A bit of blood and thunder and gore while you nod off - can't beat it!

Who's read Marie's Sunday Six Smilemakers? I can't tell you how thrilled I was to find myself among her Sunday Six. She has a picture of me when we were lucky enough to visit with Marie and Todd in October. I've made lots of friends since I've been blogging and each one is special to me but Marie is even more so cos we've met in person. In the photo I'm on the phone to someone else who means a lot to me, Grammy Staffy. She phoned all the way from California, knowing I would be at Marie's that day. Lovely.

Starting this entry yesterday (Sunday) and finishing it today, I'm not sure which date will appear but in case it's 4th GUESS WHAT???? I have two very nice chatty men clattering away replacing my windows. Yes, after all this time the job is finally under way - not with the original firm of course. Just think, by the end of the week.........

OK, I'm going to go stick some spuds in the oven now for lunch.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Saturday 2 Jan 2010 - a blank canvas........

2010-01-02T14:35:00.000Z

I just KNEW Keith had something up his sleeve, little wotsit! He's decided I need a new project for this year.

I did a little shopping list this morning and off he went to the supermarket to get it all. It's always a mistake to do this because he always comes back with everything BUT what was on the list, mainly because he leaves the list at home or in the car. It's an even bigger mistake to send my bank card with him (yes, I know you're not supposed to do that but I do) because he does the shopping using my card then gets cashback. I'll be bankrupt one of these days! I'm getting sidetracked now: he came back today with Project 2010 - The Art of Crochet!!!!!

At the start of every year a whole crop of various kinds of week-by-week magazines come out which "build into your very own encyclopaedia". You know the sort of thing I mean? Crochet. I have to learn - correction, I have to teach myself - how to crochet. And there's worse: Keith intends to do it as well! Picture the scene, himself sitting by the fireside crocheting his own...........I don't know......what DO you crochet?

Seriously, what IS crochet good for? Specially to blokes? The father of one of my Godmothers, who dutifully turned up at my baptism in 1951 and has never been seen since (the Godmother I mean), used to do beautiful embroidery and was a superb knitter, made beautiful things. My mum never knitted anything when she was expecting me because this chap could do it better and quicker than she could so I was the best dressed baby in the village.

I knew a woman - a midwife - who was ALWAYS crocheting. You would see her at it any-old-where. She would crochet in the supermarket queue or while she waited for a bus. For all I know she probably whiled away the hours while her ~~victim~~ patients produced by twiddling away. I remember once on a trip in Germany in the days when east was east and west was west we visited a customs post and our group was all agog listening as a west German customs officer gave us the spiel. All except Dierdre. Dierdre was perched on a rock on the western bank of the Elbe gazing out across the river at the east German cows on the other side.........and crocheting as if her life depended on it! But did we ever see the results of her labours? Did we heck.

So now he's been and got the first issue but - hey - it's not all bad: there's free DVD with it and 2 balls of wool. That Crocheting hook looks a bit lethal, a bit like something the dentist might use! So that is what 'we' are up to this New Year.

Something to aspire to?

I seem to remember New Year 1971 before we married, he thought I could perhaps learn how to make dresses. Huh?? Moi?? He went out and bought a dress pattern, the simplest looking thing he could find, and a length of fabric and a reel of cotton. He painstakingly laid the fabric out on the floor and pinned the pattern on it. Producing his dad's wallpapering scissors I was exhorted to "Go on, you cut it out". Moi?? It sat there in his mum's house a few days and then he cut it out himself and brought all the bits round to my house. I don't know what happened to it after that. He never mentioned it again!

If anybody asks me what they should give him for next Christmas I'm going to say a Cross-stitch kit!

HAVE A CHOCCY!!

........oh, and a HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Love

xxx

2009-12-22T21:24:00.000Z

Well, friends - dear friends all of you - it's rare to find me speechless so savour the moment! The way you've all got behind me and thought of me and prayed about me. Completely just kept me going when I felt so frightened. Your comments and emails meant the world to me. Thank you.

I actually got around to making some sausage rolls today, that staple of the British Christmas which we don't usually bother with because our tums will only hold so much, even at Christmas.

However, Delia Smith - my guru - did a Quick Flaky Pastry on telly and I just had to try it. What better excuse when Ray next door told me where I could buy the "best Lincolnshire pork sausage meat in the county". I'm not really a sausage fan but Keith is so I made Delia's pastry which involved grating frozen butter into plain flour and filled it with Ray-next-door's sausage. To the left is the result: light, crisp, buttery, melt-in-the-mouth pastry, beautiful spicy, herby sausage. I daren't really print the recipe because it'll be copyrighted within an inch of its life and Delia's recipes just never need tweeking so I can't do that and call it my own. Trust me, they're yummy!

Keith wanted to make something for lunch. It involved peeling potatoes and slicing them thinly, and then layering them in a casserole dish with smoked bacon (chopped), small mushrooms (sliced), strong cheddar cheese (lots of it) and double elmlea (cream substitute). Then he sticks it in the oven and bakes it until the potatoes are tender and the cheesy sauce bubbling. I did take a photo but it made it look a bit burnt (which it wasn't) so I've deleted it. But a plate of that was exactly the thing for a freezing cold, snowy day. All the nicer because I didn't make it myself

I know people in other parts of the world have worse weather than us but right now it feels as if this is the worst weather to hit anywhere! Snow, ice, freezing fog, minus temperatures. Oh for goodness sake it's winter so this is how it should be! I've seen it written in the gardening columns: the gardens are busting for a good old freeze-up to get rid of some of the bugs. We whinge when we get grotty summers and then when the weather does it right for once we STILL whinge! Let your kids play in it, let them toboggan and have snowball fights, let them wear holes in their gloves. If the next great British freeze is as long coming as this one they'll only get one go at it in their childhood.

Talking of snow! I've been watching Holby City whilst typing this. It's supposed to be Christmas (cut to outside shot) brilliant sunshine and leaves on the trees. I don't know, did the BBC think no-one would notice?? Or has the BBC had the date of Christmas moved and not said?

xxx

Friday 18 Dec - Good News (I think)

2009-12-18T17:06:00.000Z

I do so thank God that is over! I have to confess this past couple of weeks have been a nightmare. I couldn't even sleep properly. A few nights ago every time I started nodding off I thought the bed had become 'live' and was trying to electrcute me! It was so real. I even made Keith disconnect the bedside lamp and the alarm clock. I could only sleep on my side and only in the middle of the bed. Poor old |Keith, he had to cling on to his little bit of bed for dear life! How stupid is that? The mind is a very powerful trickster.

My appointment was for 2pm and I wasn't called until gone 3. The Consultant came sweeping in, stately as a galleon, sat himself down with 2 nurses and a med student in attendance (who all stood up of course). Then HE asked ME if I had any idea why I had been recalled in the first place! The first mammogram, he said, was R1 which, in doctor-speak, meant normal on their scale of 1 to 5. Anyway, he said there were two courses of action, seeing as there was this apparent discrepancy: they could do an MRI of my boobs which was immediately discounted as it would involve me lying face down in the MRI tunnel for half an hour and I couldn't lay face down for half a minute, let alone half an hour! The other was to repeat the mammo in a year and see what it threw up. So that was decided upon.

And do you know the most stupid thing? I never asked what results he had from the biopsy! That would surely have answered all questions? I think I'll ring up.

Afterwards, we drove to my sister's, about 10 miles from home. She's not too well just now and had a nasty panic attack last week. Very frightening for her. We had extremely naughty fish and chips for tea and, after, I found that my mobile phone had gone AWOL so I could neither text nor phone special friends because their numbers are in the phone. Yes, I do have them in the computer address book but I never thought about that did I! Turned out the phone was at sis's, as was a book she had lent me that I was really looking forward to.

So that's one panic button deactivated - at least for a year!

It's looking very Christmassy here as I type this. We woke up to a covering of snow this morning but not much - the south-east and north-east of England are worse - but it's having a good old set-to now and the sky is black as the ace of spades. Keith pegged out a couple of bed sheets this morning but they froze in ten minutes and needless to say didn't get dried out there!

Its daft really: we knew it was going to snow. The whole of the country knew it was coming and yet we STILL get caught out. Cars still get stranded, roads still become impassable, schools still get closed. Know what I think? I think some of the drivers of the cars that get stuck go out on purpose so they get on the telly. Whatever happened to running naked across rugby pitches?

Keith had to pick up mum and her supermarket shopping this morning. What a little old lady of 81 so desperately needs that she has to go in Teso's on the last weekend before Christmas your guess is as good as mine. You should see her cupboards - they're stuffed full. She's like a little squirrwl! Tesco's was heaving, the car park was ridiculous. and Keith had a job to park. She's not even going to be home at Christmas! Time and again Ive offered to order it online for her, but no.

Oh, away with all this whinging and bitching - it's Christmas!

Thurs 10th December - Introducing Emily

2009-12-10T10:00:00.002Z

Any of you who follow Marie at Oak Cottage will know that she's a multi-talented woman: she cooks, she sews, she writes, she paints, she goes to work and cooks some more - she's always at it!

Every now and then I buy something or other that she's made. Usually I have some excuse like they're for one of the great-nephews' or nieces birthday or Christmas prezzies. And what happens? I selfishly can't part with them so the kids get something else.

In summer I bought some prints thinking I would frame them for The Three. This is them now.............

They're hanging in my hallway.

And here's my most recent acquisition

Emily is sitting in a corner of the dresser in our living room, every last stitch, every frill, from Marie's own hands.

Isn't she lovely? Marie was wondering whether to make one just for herself. I think so, don't you?

OK, now listen...................

2009-12-09T21:12:00.000Z

I'm going to tell you what happens after you get the letter none of us lasses want to see: you've had a mammogram (they send for us every 3 years after age 50)and instead of getting the letter which says "All fine. See you in 3 years", you get the one which says"...not quite what we expect. You have an appointment for further investigations next week...etc etc".

It has happened to me! The leaflet I got last Thursday said don't panic but you do. My appointment was to attend Castle Hill Hospital in Hull. Well that didn't go down well for a start! My initial mammo had been at Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital in Grimsby and Castle Hill strikes terror into the hearts of us 50-odds because it's always been thought of as the place where people only come out feet first! Not any more; they send you wherever there are appointments.

2,20 was my allotted time so we arrived at 1pm, Which turned out to be a good idea because I got called for straight away, no hanging about.

You go through to a mammogram room where the problem is explained to you and theyou have offending mammo well and truly grammed again. It's not nice is it? Talk about thumb-screws! To be fair though the techy did say (not without relish I thought ) "You're not going to like this....". Then you go straight through to the doctor who shows you the pictures and explains again what the problem is, or might be. She has a lttle poke about your boobs then ultrasounds the naughty one. As she wasn't sure what she was looking at she decided to do a biopsy. "It won't hurt a bit," she said "Once the local anaesthetric is in. That will sting a bit." I had a moment of deja vu. Now where had I heard that story before? Dentist?

Well you know she was as good as her word. It didn't hurt, not at all. Even the local was not all that stingy and she explained everything she did before she did it. A couple of loud clicks from the biopsy needle and Bob's your uncle, Charlie's your aunt.

Now I wait until next Thursday when I get the results from DPOW in Grimsby. My mood at the moment is quite 'up' but who knows what I may tell you after?

What I wanted to say was that, if you ever get recalled DON'T PANIC. Got it? Don't. Wait until 2 days before you get the results and then.....PANIC LIKE MAD!

Christmas-y Chit Chat

2009-12-02T18:05:00.000Z

Here I am fresh from reading Marie's "A Yeae From Oak Cottage' entry in which she's telling of decorting the Christmas Tree when she was a child (gosh, what a memory - OUCH).

I'm around about the same age as Marie - well a couple of years older maybe. She is Canadian by birth And I am English but when it comes to Christmas trees our memories are similar. In my early childhood we always had a real tree. I don't remember anyone having pretend ones. A real tree was THE smell of Christmas! A real tree and a coal fire. I don't think us three kids ever knew where the tree came from. It just sort of.....turned up.....and there it would be standing in the corner on a chair to make it seem a bit taller.

We had no such thing as a proper stand for it. Dad would usually plant it in a big bucket - the coal scuttle often - and the first job was to camouflage that with red crepe paper. Then the first thing the tree would always do was l-e-a-n one way or another. That was why, in our house, the tree was always left until next day: to see which way it was going to go so dad could shore it up. And there would be us three all clamouring to get started! "The baubles are still in the false roof," mum would protest. They never were, the fibber, they were in her wardrobe. By the way, "the false roof" wsas what we would call the loft these days. I don't know why it was called that but anyway, it was the void between ceiling and apex, used to store things we would be lost without. Not much difference there then!

After school next day we would start. In later years, when I was 10 or 11 we had 'fairy lights' and, as in Marie's experience, they never, never worked, though they had been fine when put away the previous year. And they were all tangled up, though they hadn't been, and dad would drape them out around all the furniture
to get them straight and find out which lights were not working. It only took one to put the whole lot out but you had to check them all before dad was despatched to buy however many new bulbs. They were only tiny things but I remember mum scratting about in her purse to find enough money for them.

Then there would - at long last - be the ceremonial draping of the lights. It wasn't ceremonial really but it always seemed to us that dad spent an unconscionable amount of time doing ir! Then the precious boxes were opened and mum - ON HER OWN - would hang these glass baubles. They were donkeys' years old some of them, and ever so pretty and delicate and us ham fisted little terrors were banished. Well, one of us would be detailed to cut off short lengths from a reel of cotton so mum could tie them through the wire loops to hang them up. No kidding, us lot were chomping at the bit by this time! For goodness sake if they didn't get a move on between them it would be bedtime and we wouldn't get to do our bit,

We always did though! Two of us would have litlle packets of stuff called Lametta (I think you can still get it) which was long thin strips of shiny silvery paper which we draped over the tree branches to represent icicles. The third one would have a packet of cotton wool. With this you had to pull off little bits and throw them at the tree. These were meant to be snowflake

Then the littlest (our Gwyn) was hoisted up to put the fairy on the top. Finally, off would go the room lights and the tree lights switched on. Nothing "designer" about our tree. Every colour known to man and, apart from the vey classy baubles, any Christmassy decoration considered nice enough.

How we loved that riot of colour. Christmas was here!

Thurs 27=11=09 = Thanksgiving USA

2009-11-25T22:28:00.000Z

OK, this is jusr a short little post in the hope SOMEBODY might be able to tell me: all you American ladies \(men too I suppose) have been busy busy busy preparing for Thanksgiving and all and the descent upon your houses of sundry family and friends.

By my reckoning that makes just a few people doing all the work and a vast number just being guests. Am

I right? If I am, how old do you have to be before you learn how to cook a turkey? As I write this 75% of America is on the move, going home. What would happen if their homebody decided to pay a visit home too?

I am not being disrespectful (not wilfully anyway); I was just wondering how it works.

Right, I'm going into hiding now!!!

lots of love and a VERY HAPPY THANKSGIVING - wherever you are,

xxx

Tuesday 24 Nov - Hark, I can hear fiddles..........

2009-11-24T20:16:00.000Z

As soon as he walked in the back door and said " 'ello Darlin' . 'Ow about a cupper tea?" - as soon as he did that he was dead in the water as far as I was concerned. This was a Double Glazing Salesman par excellence. The sort you used to see on "That's Life". He was the result of a cold call and normally I just put the phone down but this time I thought surely after all the bad publicity they must have learnt a lesson. Not a bit of it. This bloke had such attitude, such swagger, such arrogance. I already decided he wasn't getting my order but I played along.

Cup of tea (one sugar sweetheart) - I forgot the sugar, heh-heh - and NO biscuits. He spent the first half hour telling us exactly how we could set about burgling most of the houses in England. When I pointed this out and asked if he could get arrested for "going equipped" he scoffed that women don;t remember these things! Ooooh was he in danger of flying out the window!

After measuring the windows - from inside because it was raining - He did a lot of tapping on his calculator and came up with two prices, the higher one fixed for a year and which he would send us 'in due course' as their quote. #2 was £400 lower and if we wanted to accept that - their special offer - we would have to sign an order now today. I said no thank you, we'll think about it and be in touch. That's when he started to get unpleasant, you know, kind of sneery. I was glad Keith was there, though as I was quite enjoying myself he didn't say anything..

Tap tap tap and he came up with yet another price a further £600 cheaper than his earlier lowest. He sar back all smug "Now luv, what would you say to THAT?" "I would say, LUV, why didn't you say that in the first place?" "So you'll sign an order on that then?" "No". And off he went in a right strop muttering about getting paid to sell windows not spend 2 hours wasting his time..............

Ooh I did enjoy that

xxxx

First Catch your Turkey...........Monday 23rd November

2009-11-23T23:35:00.000Z

Happy Thanksgiving to all you American friends. I know it's only Monday but, you know me! I might be quite certain at this minute that I'll be doing another entry before Thursday but more than likely not. What is it they say about good intentions?

Some of you may remember that I have always bemoaned the fact that our dog Sally is camera shy. In all her 16 years I have never managed to get a decent photo of her. Well, pssst, listen here, I think I might have cracked it. Keith and I have given ourselves a camcorder for Christmas. It's not supposed to be used yet but I just had a l-e-et-l-e look, just a quick squint you know, and milady looked straight at the lens! She's got cataracts so she doesn't SEE any camera and her deaf ears don't hear any tell-tale clicks and whirrs. If I can figure it out I'll show you my beloved little old lady.

Well, we have been well and truly let down by the window man. He was supposed to start our new windows on Oct 26 but he didn't turn up. When he called in on Wednesday it was to explain that he had been diagnosed on Monday with advanced bowel cancer that had spread to his pancreas. He said he had arranged with a mate of his - Duncan - to do the job the following Monday. He never turned up either. Our chap rang with profuse (the more I look at that word the less right it looks) apologies and promised faithfully to start "a week on Thursday". Do you think he did? When he rang at 11.30 to say he wouldn't be here until 1.30 Keith cancelled the job. Well, wouldn't you have? I felt so sad about his illness and how he must be feeling but I would have been happier if he had just been honest and said he couldn't do the job. Now I have to try and get our £150 deposit back from him. And, of course, find a company who can do the job at a price we can afford.

Can I be very honest with you? Various things have suggested to me that something is not quite right about that man's firm. I mean, I don't dispute his illness - you don't tell people you have cancer if it's not true surely? But though I have asked many times he has never sent us any paperwork; we have signed no order or contract. All I have is a letter from him acknowledging our deposit and confirming the start date.

And of course all our windows are left with chunks missing from the corners - like this - and that's how they'll have to stay until they get replaced.

Did I ever show you this photo? It's from our trip down south when we had lunch with Marie and Todd at Oak Cottage. It's Marie cooking Sunday lunch in her beautiful cottage kitchen. Such a warm, happy, cheerful place.

Keith has made a start on the first projectof his retirement - he's changing the garden (again) . I won't try and describe it. At the moment it's too horrid to contemplate. I'll pop down the garden in Jet Chair 1 and take photos, maybe a vid. Soo next time I'll be showing you some mucky photos!

xxxx

Friday 13th November - The Big Day

2009-11-15T21:17:00.000Z

Don't know about other countries in the world but in England Friday 13th is always considered by the superstitious to be an unlucky date. Never mind what month it is, on Friday 13th the superstitious stay in bed. My Little Grandma was terrible. In fact she was a spooky old lass all round. When we visited you had to hope the weather stayed fine because if you saw the storm clouds gathering at dinner time, te chances were you wouldn't get fed! The least hint of thunder and lightning and that was it. All things metal had to be out of sight. That meant no knives and forks, no tea pot, no cooking pots - in fact no cooker either! If you had hair grips they had to come out. If you were half way through a meal she would throw a cloth over everything on the table and we hadn't to touch anything. I don't know what good she thought a cotton table cloth would be if lightnin struck!

I'm not sure whether or not I'm truly superstitious but on this Friday 13th I had to be up and doing because it was the day of The Handover. My friendly neighbourhood wheelchair OT (occupational therapist) came round so I could officially take possession of the electric wheelchair I've waited so long for. More than a year have I waited for it and now - Ladles and Jellyspoons - I give you..............THE CHAIR.

I know what you're thinking: "Wouldn't you think she could have taken out that extra bit of cushion out from under the 'proper' cushion." I should have. Would have lookdd nicer but to tell the truth I forgot, I'm using the extra bit to lift me up higher (me being awful wee)

Eeeeeh I went up to town on Saturday, to the camera shop. We have a verygood familyrun one here where they really know what they're talking about and guess what? They managed to retrieve all 118 photos of Keith's birthday that I thought we had lost. Oh happy day so here he is, the birthday boy............ and a girlfriend!

C - H - E - E - R - S!!!!!!

xxxx

Fri 6 Nov - The result!

2009-11-06T15:48:00.000Z

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

2009-11-06T09:14:00.000Z

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

2009-11-03T22:20:00.000Z

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

2009-11-02T19:53:00.000Z

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

2009-10-16T16:35:00.001+01:00

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

2009-10-14T22:38:00.001+01:00

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)

2009-10-14T00:14:00.000+01:00

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