I have holiday starting about 9.30pm tonight (Friday) and I haven't got a clue what I am going to do with myself.
There is so much I should be doing, could be doing, want to be doing, BUT which I shall do, or feel up to doing, is the unknown quantity. I set out with such good intentions but the reality of my energy and inspiration levels always means I fall short of my own aspirations. The children are otherwise engaged and miss my grandchildren as I do there have to be times when I share them, reluctantly, with other members of their families. Anyway, I have to do maintenance work on my own psyche and individuality because if that falls apart then I shall end up like a lot of the sad women I have looked after over the years, lost and moribund. They have subsumed themselves so entirely in home, hearth and family that when the children have flown the coup, the husband/partner is dead, and they can no longer manage the home, they are left with precisely nothing. No interests, no personal individuality and no impetuous to drive them forward.
So now we are on Sunday and what have I done? Well, I have transplanted lettuce seedlings, and planted more spring onions - I have carted water for the tomatoes and now the sun has gone away and growing conditions are at a premium. I have made bread and muffins (chocolate), fiddled with various designs and photos and more than anything struggled with this laptop which has suddenly decided to play silly b's with my pictures and programmes. It freezes, shuts itself down, and the cursor becomes paralysed. My mobile phone is also temperamental and will send/receive multimedia messages as/when it feels like it. I am fed up especially as I haven't changed any settings. I bet if I take them back to where I bought them the first line of defence will be to ask me what I have changed? Of course they will then work perfectly and make me look a complete prat!
Bank Holiday has dawned bright, fair and windy - just right for hanging the washing out, cleaning the vacuum cleaner filter, thus covering myself in dust, desperately trying to make the place look presentable ready for the hairdresser visiting tomorrow. Isn't life riveting? And protecting my tomatoes from the coming gale. Is this really nearly June? So, I rigged up this Heath Robinson affair of a wind break around my baby plants, composed of bubble wrap, pea canes and pegs. Very useful items pegs. Not classically decorative - bubble wrap and bright orange pegs- but serviceable.
We are onto Tuesday now and the hairdresser finally arrived. Why are they so afraid of my hair, of cropping the nape of my neck so the hair doesn't stick out at a 45 degree angle as it grows out of my scalp?
The excuses are interesting if not bizarre - it will make your head look small, it will make you look masculine, I can give you a false hairline - NO! Just do as I ask - you ask enough money for it.
Then I went for a lay down after an early start and disturbed night. I get up and guess what? One side of my hair is as flat as a pancake. When I lay on the other side this does not happen. It simply confirms a long held view that my hair, like the rest of me, has a life and mind of its own, that continues without reference to my control.
Wednesday. This entry has to stop being a draft and become a published post so I will endeavour to bring it to some sort of conclusion. I had the most horrendous night which did not bode well for the day to come. It was broken sleep punctuated by vivid, bizarre rather than frightening, dreams and an inability to relax or get comfortable. This of course meant that I overslept this morning. I was going to do so much in town before going to see my daughter and the pixies. The weather was dank and misty, more reminiscent of November than the end of May, and it didn't take much to talk myself out of my original plan, truncate the agenda, and head for the supermarket to pick up lunch and then to my final destination.
Those pixies - what can I say? They do me the world of good with their zest for life ( and destruction) and redress the sense of hopelessness that occasionally assails me. Of course they are wonderful, of course I am biased, but you don't get great children without good parents and if the pixies' elders need to reassure themselves about their abilities then they should be comforted by the plain, straight forward, rightness of these particular imps. The day, after I left to come back home, deteriorated somewhat, weather wise, and as the rain cascaded off the guttering I turned my back on it and lost myself between "facebook" and you Dear Blog.
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Friday 23 May 2008
Tuesday 20 May 2008
a miscellany
Various things have been buzzing about my brain over the last few days.
A lot of it to do with the Lancaster. Now, people seem to think it very peculiar that a woman should be obsessed with this aircraft, in her own right if you see what I mean, not as an adjunct to some male in her life as a shared interest. I am the one that drags the males in the family,(not that it takes much you understand) to various places to watch this, and the rest of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, going through its paces. For me it is a deeply emotional and evocative experience that re-affirms that all is not entirely lost in this apparently benighted land - that there are still some semblances of the character and tenacity that saved our communal lives.
And I am not alone. Another woman of my acquaintance, a phlebotomist, is also a Lanc. fanatic. We exchange notes when we meet over a blood sample and if she didn't do such a good job and wasn't such a thoroughly nice person I would have scratched her eyes out when she told me she was actually going for a ride in My Beauty (My pet name for City of Lincoln, whatever her current manifestation) and had paid £250 for the privilege.
I have also noticed that there are more women on the flight line at take off, also there out of their own interest and not at the tail end of a line of father, son, brother, grandad etc. etc.
Standing by the barrier at the Coningsby families day flypast, as each element of The Flight taxied out, I looked over my shoulder and the word, and the distinctive sound of the Merlins, was getting around. The stampede as people converged from all quarters made me glad I had stuck to my guns and made getting a good vantage point the first priority when we arrived.
As My Beauty and her acolytes, the Spitfire and Hurricane, trundled down the runway, I looked along the crowded barriers. There were women holding video cameras, digital cameras, mobile phones aloft. As the planes cleared the ground level with us the young woman next to me couldn't contain herself any longer. "Aren't they bloody brilliant?" To which the general response was "How right you are!"
While they fly I shall not lose all hope.
A lot of it to do with the Lancaster. Now, people seem to think it very peculiar that a woman should be obsessed with this aircraft, in her own right if you see what I mean, not as an adjunct to some male in her life as a shared interest. I am the one that drags the males in the family,(not that it takes much you understand) to various places to watch this, and the rest of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, going through its paces. For me it is a deeply emotional and evocative experience that re-affirms that all is not entirely lost in this apparently benighted land - that there are still some semblances of the character and tenacity that saved our communal lives.
And I am not alone. Another woman of my acquaintance, a phlebotomist, is also a Lanc. fanatic. We exchange notes when we meet over a blood sample and if she didn't do such a good job and wasn't such a thoroughly nice person I would have scratched her eyes out when she told me she was actually going for a ride in My Beauty (My pet name for City of Lincoln, whatever her current manifestation) and had paid £250 for the privilege.
I have also noticed that there are more women on the flight line at take off, also there out of their own interest and not at the tail end of a line of father, son, brother, grandad etc. etc.
Standing by the barrier at the Coningsby families day flypast, as each element of The Flight taxied out, I looked over my shoulder and the word, and the distinctive sound of the Merlins, was getting around. The stampede as people converged from all quarters made me glad I had stuck to my guns and made getting a good vantage point the first priority when we arrived.
As My Beauty and her acolytes, the Spitfire and Hurricane, trundled down the runway, I looked along the crowded barriers. There were women holding video cameras, digital cameras, mobile phones aloft. As the planes cleared the ground level with us the young woman next to me couldn't contain herself any longer. "Aren't they bloody brilliant?" To which the general response was "How right you are!"
While they fly I shall not lose all hope.
Saturday 10 May 2008
shape of life
There is an awful symmetry about life and death.
I use the word "awful" in its original meaning, i.e. shock and awe style.
We would be very worried if birth was a quiet, placid affair, however much we woman would
like it to be so.
So why do we see the perfect death as requiring calmness, tranquillity and stillness (prior to the ultimate stillness, of course).
The truth is that there is an awful symmetry and as we come kicking and screaming down the birth canal, taking the first breath that ruptures the vessel that allows the circulation of blood to become closed and independent,
the struggle begins.
Whether we like it or not, the struggle is vital and without it we remain enfeebled and lacking stamina.
My great fear for today's generation is that, in our desire to protect them, we deprive them of the opportunity to strive, to discover what they have in them, to push their limits and thereby grow stronger.
However long or short our days, and I believe in earthly terms the expenditure of life force varies for each individual, once the cycle has completed, the life force, for want of a better word, is exhausted and life here is over. The problem is the length of the cycle - some use it up more quickly than others. This is the unknown quantity.
I use the word "awful" in its original meaning, i.e. shock and awe style.
We would be very worried if birth was a quiet, placid affair, however much we woman would
like it to be so.
So why do we see the perfect death as requiring calmness, tranquillity and stillness (prior to the ultimate stillness, of course).
The truth is that there is an awful symmetry and as we come kicking and screaming down the birth canal, taking the first breath that ruptures the vessel that allows the circulation of blood to become closed and independent,
the struggle begins.
Whether we like it or not, the struggle is vital and without it we remain enfeebled and lacking stamina.
My great fear for today's generation is that, in our desire to protect them, we deprive them of the opportunity to strive, to discover what they have in them, to push their limits and thereby grow stronger.
However long or short our days, and I believe in earthly terms the expenditure of life force varies for each individual, once the cycle has completed, the life force, for want of a better word, is exhausted and life here is over. The problem is the length of the cycle - some use it up more quickly than others. This is the unknown quantity.
Thursday 8 May 2008
Out of the mouths of babes.....
Lewis, aged 9, on seeing an advert for wrinkle and spot removal:
"You should keep all your wrinkles and spots - it's nature's way of telling you -
Being an adult stinks!"
"You should keep all your wrinkles and spots - it's nature's way of telling you -
Being an adult stinks!"
Wednesday 7 May 2008
The BBQ
The people, a motley crew, of almost-chavs with the women in over tight clothing and men in peculiar combinations of colours and patterns. That awful ensemble of t-shirt, three quarter shorts, socks and Birkenstocks was much in evidence.
The tensions were mostly hidden but rose nearer the surface as more alcohol flowed.
People dipped into black bins and pulled out cans and bottles.
Vaguely defined groups developed at tables, under canopies around the edges, ebbed and flowed in the middle. We all scrutinised each other. Funny how people find an observer like myself uncomfortable.
Someone not just stuffing her face or rapidly becoming legless is conspicuous and threatening. I saw them watching, whispering covertly, and didn't care!
The children bounced in ever changing configurations on the trampoline or toddled around the obstacle course of adult legs.
The hostess had worked hard. She had that pug-nosed Crankiesque physiognomy typical of some urban Scots.
We picked at barbecue food - cold stiff pasta salad, cold stiff, partially carbonised sausages. The roast pork was good if slab like.
After two hours of racket and karaoke I made my excuses and left escorted by number one son, himself at the edges of his sociability scale, and we walked home. Daughter in law, and guest,arrived a little later and after stamping feet and tears to relieve her exasperation at the actions of so-called friends, settled down to counsel said guest with the aid of yours truly, and a bottle of wine.
While I played endless games of solitaire and tried to keep us all on this side of sanity, tears and heartache flowed and years of separation were bridged. And we wondered why we had bothered with the BBQ.
The tensions were mostly hidden but rose nearer the surface as more alcohol flowed.
People dipped into black bins and pulled out cans and bottles.
Vaguely defined groups developed at tables, under canopies around the edges, ebbed and flowed in the middle. We all scrutinised each other. Funny how people find an observer like myself uncomfortable.
Someone not just stuffing her face or rapidly becoming legless is conspicuous and threatening. I saw them watching, whispering covertly, and didn't care!
The children bounced in ever changing configurations on the trampoline or toddled around the obstacle course of adult legs.
The hostess had worked hard. She had that pug-nosed Crankiesque physiognomy typical of some urban Scots.
We picked at barbecue food - cold stiff pasta salad, cold stiff, partially carbonised sausages. The roast pork was good if slab like.
After two hours of racket and karaoke I made my excuses and left escorted by number one son, himself at the edges of his sociability scale, and we walked home. Daughter in law, and guest,arrived a little later and after stamping feet and tears to relieve her exasperation at the actions of so-called friends, settled down to counsel said guest with the aid of yours truly, and a bottle of wine.
While I played endless games of solitaire and tried to keep us all on this side of sanity, tears and heartache flowed and years of separation were bridged. And we wondered why we had bothered with the BBQ.
Thursday 1 May 2008
catching up again!
To continue from where I left off regarding peculiar people and my decision to start a personal backlash against other people's insensitivity ( with regard to me).
Some of the other people I saw during my sojourn in the city included the lovely placard man with his all- weather gear and big sign admonishing sinners to repent - the truth always hurts but remains the truth for all that. I was waiting for someone to start giving him some lip just for the opportunity to wade in and, the two of us together, show the unbelievers what really muscular Christianity is about - not that Sign Man would need my help. I have seen him in action and believe- you- me he can more than take care of himself.
There was the little woman in the chemists who stood so close to me I wondered if she wanted to pick my purse, although it would have been a waste of time, but no, what she wanted was advice about hair spritz as if asking me would leave her any wiser. Neither of us found what we were looking for or were even sure what it was in the first place!
Why,when there is loads of space where ever I am, do people have to come and stand so close you would think they were practising sardines? And they have to inflict their life stories on me as well, speaking as if I was privy to the characters starring in said story so don't need the vital bits of background info. that makes sense of it all. I must have the sort of face that is so inconsequential and nonthreatening that just talking at me makes them feel better and me feel like a blotter. ( But then I wouldn't have ammunition for this blog or the "novel" I keep trying to write.)
A person strolled into my place of work this afternoon who also imprinted herself on me for all kinds of reasons. Firstly, because every time I see her I am convinced I know her from somewhere else but can't think where. Secondly, because she has the archetypal middle class English face that is intellectual but trying so hard to be of the people. She wears a well worn gillet, cords and quirky handmade shoes that are so foot shaped and utilitarian only middle class ex-hippies and those needing orthotics would look at them.
However, the chief reason she impacted on my memory was the great fuss and palaver she made over a small bunch of pansies she had brought for the person she was visiting. Could we find a small enough vase to fit them? When she had shown them to said recipient she would come back for said vase. She came back, put the flowers into the vase,( a plastic drinking glass, which was all we had small enough) and inspected them from various angles. Could she take them back again for the recipient to look at? Where would be the best place to display them to best advantage and effect when she came back?
Eventually, we settled on a table by the front door where the six pansies would "cheer us all and raise our spirits" - perhaps. In the meantime my and colleague and I were trying to actually get on with a fairly important task, the completion of which would really cheer us up no end.
After all that this woman sat with the resident, in total silence, and never gave the already wilting pansies another thought.
This is what gets me about this particular type of intellectual. They try so hard to be eco- friendly, recycling minded and earthy and the truth is they often don't have a practical bone in their bodies and really do live on another planet, which is inhabited by"lovely people who think nice thoughts" and don't disturb the ether of cosy suburbia.
If you ask them to do something really natural such as clean up great cow pats of ordure that have just erupted from a human rectum or pick dentures out of unmentionable places, they wouldn't just run a mile they would collapse with disgust. Whether we like it or not nature is red in tooth and claw, and yellow and various shades of brown in elimination!! If we kicked up as much fuss about the really vile and artificial stuff we create and do to each other, as we do about totally natural functions we would all be dead without, then I might start to take some of these people and their ideologies seriously.
Some of the other people I saw during my sojourn in the city included the lovely placard man with his all- weather gear and big sign admonishing sinners to repent - the truth always hurts but remains the truth for all that. I was waiting for someone to start giving him some lip just for the opportunity to wade in and, the two of us together, show the unbelievers what really muscular Christianity is about - not that Sign Man would need my help. I have seen him in action and believe- you- me he can more than take care of himself.
There was the little woman in the chemists who stood so close to me I wondered if she wanted to pick my purse, although it would have been a waste of time, but no, what she wanted was advice about hair spritz as if asking me would leave her any wiser. Neither of us found what we were looking for or were even sure what it was in the first place!
Why,when there is loads of space where ever I am, do people have to come and stand so close you would think they were practising sardines? And they have to inflict their life stories on me as well, speaking as if I was privy to the characters starring in said story so don't need the vital bits of background info. that makes sense of it all. I must have the sort of face that is so inconsequential and nonthreatening that just talking at me makes them feel better and me feel like a blotter. ( But then I wouldn't have ammunition for this blog or the "novel" I keep trying to write.)
A person strolled into my place of work this afternoon who also imprinted herself on me for all kinds of reasons. Firstly, because every time I see her I am convinced I know her from somewhere else but can't think where. Secondly, because she has the archetypal middle class English face that is intellectual but trying so hard to be of the people. She wears a well worn gillet, cords and quirky handmade shoes that are so foot shaped and utilitarian only middle class ex-hippies and those needing orthotics would look at them.
However, the chief reason she impacted on my memory was the great fuss and palaver she made over a small bunch of pansies she had brought for the person she was visiting. Could we find a small enough vase to fit them? When she had shown them to said recipient she would come back for said vase. She came back, put the flowers into the vase,( a plastic drinking glass, which was all we had small enough) and inspected them from various angles. Could she take them back again for the recipient to look at? Where would be the best place to display them to best advantage and effect when she came back?
Eventually, we settled on a table by the front door where the six pansies would "cheer us all and raise our spirits" - perhaps. In the meantime my and colleague and I were trying to actually get on with a fairly important task, the completion of which would really cheer us up no end.
After all that this woman sat with the resident, in total silence, and never gave the already wilting pansies another thought.
This is what gets me about this particular type of intellectual. They try so hard to be eco- friendly, recycling minded and earthy and the truth is they often don't have a practical bone in their bodies and really do live on another planet, which is inhabited by"lovely people who think nice thoughts" and don't disturb the ether of cosy suburbia.
If you ask them to do something really natural such as clean up great cow pats of ordure that have just erupted from a human rectum or pick dentures out of unmentionable places, they wouldn't just run a mile they would collapse with disgust. Whether we like it or not nature is red in tooth and claw, and yellow and various shades of brown in elimination!! If we kicked up as much fuss about the really vile and artificial stuff we create and do to each other, as we do about totally natural functions we would all be dead without, then I might start to take some of these people and their ideologies seriously.
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