RedMummy Rambles On

GUEST BLOG by David Haas

2011-10-27T16:46:00.003+01:00

Following my last blog "Seven & a half weeks seems like a very long time", I was contacted by David Haas who has written an article about how important it is to keep fit whilst undergoing any form of cancer treatment. He asked if I'd be prepared to insert the article into my blog.

Now, as anyone who's follows my blog or who follows me on Twitter knows ... I don't have a great deal of patience for faddy ideas about health (or faddy ideas about much else either, really, and I spend a fair amount of time deleting most of my sister-in-law's panic stricken emails insisting that my husband should eat ginger in vast amounts - or whichever whim of which she's just heard - as usually they are "proven cures" for cancer) but, having read David's article - it did seem to be plain common sense, so - with that in mind, here it is. I hope that you may find it interesting and useful:

Four Reasons why Fitness is Important to Cancer Patients and Survivors

Whether you've just been diagnosed or have been in remission for years, physical fitness is an important goal for every cancer patient and survivor. Exercise has been proven to provide physical, mental, and even spiritual relief to everyone, especially to those touched by cancer. Here are four reasons you should make physical fitness a top priority.

Physical activity fights depression and other negative emotions. No matter what your prognosis, you may be dealing with feelings of despondency, grief, anxiety, or depression. Engaging in moderate exercise release serotonin, a chemical in the brain, which increases positive emotions such as mental strength, calmness, and joy. Being active will also help you focus on your abilities, rather than your hindrances associated with your diagnosis.

Exercise combats nausea and increases appetite. Whether you are going through a common diagnosis like breast cancer or a rare disease like mesothelioma, your treatments may leave you feeling uninterested in food. However, the demand on your body's reserves has probably never been greater. Many cancer patients become quite thin due to this. Doing some light cardiovascular exercise or having a doctor-approved calisthenics routine tells your body that you must eat. Patients who work out, even at a minimal level, report eating more, keeping their weight up, and feeling less nauseous.

Repetitive motion puts you in 'the zone' mentally. The calm, cathartic motion of walking or riding a bicycle often puts people in a mental space that is conducive to quiet reflection. Some may pray. Others may think about their goals in life. Others may want to think about beating their cancer, or finding a cure. This exercise-induced daydreaming can be very helpful and is considered a spiritual experience by some.

Exercise encourages your body to hold muscle mass and bone density. The last thing you need is to beat cancer and then suffer from osteoporosis or debilitating fatigue as a result! Exercising moderately will help keep your bones from becoming brittle and will also help your muscles stay firm and toned. Whether it's mesothelioma treatment, radiation, chemotherapy, or an experimental course of treatment, you will need your bone and muscle density to perform your daily duties and continue to live independently.

Physical fitness is integral to keeping your mind, body, and spirit healthy as a cancer patient or survivor. Talk to you oncologist to see what level and intensity of exercise he or she recommends. You have nothing to lose and so much to gain!

By: David Haas

Seven & a half weeks seems like a very long time ...

2011-08-11T09:06:00.003+01:00

Today my husband is currently en route to hospital for his second session of radiotherapy treatment for prostate cancer. He has to have a 10 minute blast each week day for the next 7½ weeks. He is behaving very calmly about the whole situation but I know him quite well. He’s frightened and that fear is, understandably, causing him to behave in more of an irritable fashion than usual. He looks and feels very tired but, at the moment, is insisting on carrying on “as usual” work-wise which, in one way, is laudable but I’m not hugely certain that wearing himself out is a brilliant idea when undergoing a treatment that can, amongst other side-effects, cumulatively make one feel exhausted.

We have been enormously lucky in receiving so many messages of good luck and kind wishes for his well-being from friends all over the world. I’ve been really rather overwhelmed by emails, messages on Twitter, calls from friends.

The sad fact is that I had to remind my husband’s own siblings that it would be good of them to contact him to find out how he’s doing. I received but one response to this reminder … my husband’s older brother emailed to request that I shouldn’t be so condescending. The dichotomy of having so many good wishes from friends makes his family’s behaviour seem all the more aggravating to me. I resolve not to give this too much priority but, that said, I’ve been up all night not only worrying about my husband but also prickling with indignation about his dysfunctional family.

This diary clearly isn’t only going to be about how my husband is coping with his treatment but also how I am feeling about it from day-to-day. I’m not going to spout rude words herein but suffice it to say that it would be a damned sight easier for me to deal with my husband’s fear than it is to navigate nervously around his denial. He and his family are so controlled (and, indeed, controlling) but I must remember that everyone deals with problems in their own way. Just now my husband’s way seems completely alien to me.

If anyone would care to scream on my behalf, I would be very grateful.

I'm having a bit of a worry ...

2011-07-13T01:55:00.003+01:00

I’m having a bit of a worry …

On 1st January 2011, I wrote my last blog post … I didn’t exactly make any New Year’s Resolutions but I did say that I was going to write 200 words each day until those words became a book. I haven’t done that. Other things took over, the 200 words each day were abandoned and instead I became involved in learning about nearly every NHS geriatric ward in the environs of North East London and Essex which now all seems pretty pointless because my 90 year old father died anyway.

That sounds very churlish but, let’s face it, 90 year old gentlemen (and he was a GENTLE man) who suffer from Parkinson’s Disease and leukaemia tend not to get better and many of my daily visits were spent having one-sided conversations conducted in a jolly voice with someone who wasn’t ever going to respond. Sometimes I missed a day or two of visiting but then guilt got the better of me and once again I would sit at the bedside of a hallucinating nonagenarian and try for 30 minutes or an hour to make everything sound okay with his world. He died on 11th May and, sad as I am, it really and truly was for the best.

I should, at this point, also add … with just a tinge of spitefulness in my fingertips … that I believe if the NHS in this area had got its act together, his life may have been prolonged, with considerably more dignity than was the reality, for a while longer but, heck – what’s the point? He was shunted from pillar to post and back to pillar again. Each ward to which he was admitted had no idea of what his medications should have been, what his name was or indeed where he had come from. I made an official complaint to the NHS which was only answered after my MP prompted the Trust to respond – and I received that response a week or so after his demise. I write follow-up letters in my head night after night but none of them will get printed or sent because none of them will bring my Pa back.

In the middle of the marathon bout of hospital visiting, I had a bit more bad news … my husband has been diagnosed with Prostate Cancer. He’s been having “wee problems” for about 3 years but is an extremely stubborn bugger and wouldn’t go to the Doctor – so, instead of having an enlarged prostate or even Stage 1 Prostate Cancer, he now has Stage 2 Prostate Cancer and is at home preparing for 7½ weeks of radiotherapy which we hope will see the cancer on its way. The good people of Twitter know my husband as OP which stands for Old Peculiar and, to the good people of Twitter, he IS old … he’s even older than I am and I am Methuselah and he IS peculiar – but so am I, so I guess we’re quite well-matched in an odd sort of a way. But he ISN’T that old and I have had enough of illness this year and I don’t want anything awful to happen to him. I just don’t. And stamping my feet and having a tantrum doesn’t solve anything at all but that’s exactly what I feel like doing – because it’s JUST NOT FAIR. He is a mild man, often an awkward sod and not as kind as people who meet him think he is, but he is mine and I want him to be well and happy and carry on being my husband and my son’s father.

And NOW look what I’ve done … I’ve made myself cry. And I am not supposed to do that.

To top it all, I have had to grow up … in the mother stakes. Josh, about whom I tweet frequently, is now 14 years old and he is on his first extended holiday away from home ever. He has spent an odd night away here and there but now he is away for a fortnight in the Middle East.

WHAT? Do I hear people cry “THE MIDDLE EAST”? Yes, dears … that most dangerous of countries in the Middle East … you know – the one that allows women to drive, doesn't make them walk 3 paces behind their husbands covered from head to toe in black burkhas, doesn't stone them if they happen to have sex before they're married or play away from home once they are, the one that doesn’t shoot its own citizens if they have a demonstration, the one that has proper democratic elections without the need of an Arab Spring to overthrow its despotic leaders … the one that is demonised by nearly every medium possible … Israel. I WILL say that most of its citizens are desperate for peace with its neighbours but make the dreadful mistake of voting in politicians whom, because they have a good command of English (albeit "American English"), they seem to think are "statesmen" when all that they really are, are warmongers with a good command of the English language.

And that's the little country that Josh is visiting. And I am missing my kid. I behaved disgracefully yesterday after I’d waved him off at 6.30am … I went out with a friend for a very non-kosher fried breakfast, came home, took 2 Temazepam and slept for nearly 24 hours … so I wouldn’t miss him at school out time or at breakfast time this morning. It worked for those 24 hours but I’d really only deferred the utter misery of not having him around and I feel positively ghastly tonight.

I miss him coming downstairs at 9.00pm to assure me that he’s going to have a shower “any minute”. I feel bereft at not having to remind him at 10.30pm that “any minute” does not, in fact, comprise 90 minutes and would he PERLEEEZ go and have a shower NOW.

I miss him interrupting my ‘phone calls. I could be on the ‘phone to the Queen herself but if Josh wants to talk to me … it would matter not. He talks. I scream at him and still he talks. I don’t listen to him and STILL HE TALKS. I miss him at 7.30am when he wakes up and demands “Mum, BE SARCASTIC … teach ME how to be sarcastic”. He doesn’t understand that I can’t help being sarcastic and I can’t switch it on or off like an electric light. And he doesn’t understand something much more important than that … sarcasm doesn’t win anyone any friends. I guess it takes an excess of 50 years on this planet to learn that for oneself.

I miss his jokes … even the ones that aren’t funny. I miss him changing his clothes 11 times after he comes home from school or 14 times on Saturdays and Sundays. I miss him saying “Yuch” to whatever I cook and then eating 2 helpings of everything. I miss him thinking he’s conning me when, in fact, I know EXACTLY how much chocolate he eats and how many cans of diet Coke he drinks. I miss him rapping tunelessly. I miss him following me around with his video camera. I miss him most dreadfully.

And I am very proud of myself because I now know what MY Ma went through when I went anywhere. I was an only child too and she was an uber-protective mother but she bit her tongue, gritted her teeth and didn’t wrap me in cotton wool and that is exactly how I try to be with Josh. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I don’t. But sure as hell – in these two weeks, he will be having the time of his life and it actually doesn’t matter how much I miss him because HIS independence matters so much more than my misery.

My Ma used to say to me about kids … “When they’re babies they make your arms ache and when they grow up they make your heart ache”.

She was very wise, was my Ma … and while I’m at it – I miss her too.

So … I’m having a bit of a worry. Usually, I stay in my shell when I’m miserable. I don’t tweet much because I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me, I can do it all by myself. But tonight? Well, tonight, I just have to tell you how utterly and completely wretched I feel.

I bloody hope my next blog post is happier!

Thank you for reading. Please pass the Kleenex.

A Little Bit of Honesty to Start 2011

2011-01-01T03:15:00.006Z

Okay, so 2011 is the year that I have decided to call myself a writer and am committing to write at least 200 words a day so that by 31-12-11, I will have 73,000 words and something that can be mangled into a book. At the moment, most of the words that are in my head are "and", "but", "the" and "ergo" but the longer ones will come and the story is there. I am not going to tell you the longer ones until they're finished but, Dear Blog Readers and Twitter friends, please nag me because I need every bit of encouragement I can get!

2010 was a hell of a year. It started, as most years do, on 1st January which was momentous as that was the day that I moved with my son to London in order for him to start at his new school. That move nearly split my marriage but the gods of dead controlling mothers-in-law must have been grimacing at me because husband and I still appear to be together! My instincts weren't awry. The school in Bournemouth that I took my son out of is now officially failing and the lovely journos at The Bournemouth Echo pointed out an article about it published on 14th December 2010. On the last day of 2010, they pointed me in the direction of a further article written about a local Bournemouth councilor's views on Bournemouth education. I despair. I offered to write an article for them 14 months ago which perhaps could have benefited Bournemouth kids in achieving the education that ALL kids deserve but The Echo's editor was "a bit nervous" about it. It's not my place to ask why but, heck, I'd like to edit that newspaper! The journos there deserve a bit of bravery! That article became my blog ... "The Lunatics are Running the Asylum". 14 months is a long time for any kid to have a rotten education and the journos at the Echo must have found their editor's decision NOT to go with my article rather frustrating. Never mind, my son is now happily installed in a most wonderful London school and is thriving. It doesn't stop me from feeling bad about the kids he left behind at the school from which I removed him.

My blogs in the past year have been spasmodic to put it mildly - not least because I've been busy getting son settled into his new environment, buying a house and generally getting used to living back in London. Well, I say London ... we're in Essex. At some stage I will get it out of my head that I'm no longer a NW8 girl or even a SW7 girl and at some point in the near future I will, in order to fit in, have to dye myself orange and start speaking broad Essex. This is never going to happen. I may live in Essex but the accent won't adhere and nor will the colour be tangoed!

Twitter has remained a lifeline for me and I still join in as much as I can ... but I've discovered a few realities about myself. 140 characters are not enough to be anything other than completely honest. The bullshit shows through so very clearly and I've hardened myself to the fact that I have a very long memory and am pathologically incapable of not checking facts. I don't think I am anything other than the person I am in real life when I tweet or blog. I don't pretend and I don't bullshit and in 2011, if my followers do, then they can expect me to pull them up on it. I'm all for "creative writing" but if someone blogs about something as FACT and it isn't, then it sort of makes my skin crawl. Write creatively, by all means, but head it up with "I made this up" so everyone knows where they stand.

Can I manage without Twitter? Of course I can, and in the next year, I will be so doing as writing a couple of hundred words a day is going to restrict my time there but, I'll be around because I would miss my friends too much not to be.

So 2011 is starting on a very honest note. If that honesty upsets anyone then I apologise but honest I am and honest I will be.

I wish you all the 2011 that you wish for yourselves. Mainly I wish for health, happiness and peace for us all. (Oh & I also wish for people whose careers are writing schtick to stick to that and give themselves a quick kick in the shins if they start writing about politics about which they know nothing ... but that's a story for another day!).

The Hot Flush Fairy

2010-11-09T22:32:00.002Z

Long ago and far away I can remember my lovely Ma wandering around our home in the deepest, darkest and coldest of winters wearing summer clothes. Often she was quite red in the face and she seemed to be incredibly distracted most of the time. I have become my Ma … although possibly not quite so lovely but rather more distracted.

I am being visited with boring regularity by the Hot Flush Fairy. She’s not one of the nice fairies who live at the bottom of the garden. She’s vile. She inhabits whichever room, car, bed, shopping centre or street I happen to be in and so far she’s only really bothering me as neither my husband nor my son can see her or feel any of her delightful little tricks.

About two months ago, on the advice of my doctor, I stopped taking my HRT tablets and this seemed to herald the arrival of the Hot Flush Fairy. I have been back to the doctor to plead with him to let me resume taking HRT but he has refused and he wasn’t able to provide any magic spells to banish the Hot Flush Fairy from my kingdom either. He did offer me some teeny tiny blue tablets that he said were the same as HRT but “without the oestrogen”. I take them religiously but the damned fairy is still plaguing me. She’s resistant to Dixarit and positively thumbs her nose at Black Cohosh, Red Clover, soya and Selenium. She’s going to stick with me until SHE decides to go. And meanwhile, I am living in my own personal tropical paradise. If I walk the dog, I go out wearing suitable attire for windy, wet conditions & come back carrying almost everything except a tee-shirt which, if I weren’t so “modest”, I’d divest myself of too. I want my oestrogen back. Please somebody … anybody … give me back my oestrogen.

Well – of course, no-one IS going to give my oestrogen back to me so I had better get used to behaving in the bizarre fashion that has been MY norm for the past couple of months. And whilst I’m getting used to it, my husband had better get used to it, too. I have no idea why I go upstairs, then have to come back downstairs to remember why I’d gone upstairs in the first place. I really and truly don’t forget to switch on the oven on purpose (although possibly a room with an oven switched on in it is not exactly the right place for me just now) – and, anyway, salads are healthy so he should just shut up. I find bed the most unappealing place on earth and not only when he’s actually at home – but the idea of having a duvet over me when the Hot Flush Fairy visits is an entirely abhorrent thought altogether. I don’t know WHY I insisted on purchasing a Slanket whilst the Fairy is reigning supreme except there ARE moments when I suddenly feel freezing cold and wrapping myself in a Slanket seems like a very logical thing to do when these rare moments occur – but then, of course, I have to muster the energy to sling the Slanket off when the Fairy bids me so to do.

My lovely Ma did eventually stop wandering around the house in summer clothes in deep mid-winter … I can’t remember how many deep mid-winters it took her to stop doing it but I know that she did. I wonder for how long I will be in this phase? I wish someone could give me the answer because, in rare moments of lucidity, I do actually recognise that I am going as barmy as a cartload of monkeys and I would truly like it to stop.

Excuse me now, please. I have to go and wander around the garden in my nightdress. It is raining and blowing a gale out there but if I’m quick, I might be able to leave the Hot Flush Fairy out there and dash back in feeling ever so slightly cooler.

The Longest Day

2010-06-22T02:19:00.004+01:00

What a very long day this has been and, because sleep is completely eluding me tonight, light has rolled into darkness and is almost about to become light again, it seems that 21st June truly IS the longest day & it appears to have some sort of grudge against me!

Followers on Twitter will have seen me refer to “Fanny in the Corner” ... Fanny (clearly not her real name) is the spinster daughter of my favourite, now long dead, great aunt – she is 80 years old and, when we used to live in Catatonia by the Sea, she used to visit us about three or four times a year. The visits were meant to last about a week but one week usually became two and two often became four. She’s a sweet old dear and was really no trouble at all. She lives in London and, since moving here, I’m ashamed to say that we actually see considerably less of her now that we live in London too than ever we did when we were on the South coast. Just after we moved to London, Fanny had a fall and had a stroke. She’s been in and out of hospital ever since. Her patch is North West London and we now live in Essex. Getting to North West London on a frequent basis is something that just doesn’t happen. I heard yesterday that despite living in a really excellent care home she’s had yet another fall and is, once again, back in hospital.

Twitter friends will also have seen me refer to “Doddery Dave” who is my 89 year old father and whom, rather guiltily, I left in Catatonia when we moved to London. He knew the circumstances of our move ... and, being a very good Grandpa, fully understood and approved of a change of school for his grandson. Since we moved he, too, has been in and out of hospital. He suffers from Parkinson’s Disease and leukaemia and is a very, very frail old gentleman. Getting to see him is even more problematic than traversing London to get to see Fanny.

Doddery Dave actually spent all last week with us – I’ve managed to arrange that he will move into a super sheltered flat very nearby at the end of next month and he had to come to London to sign papers and set up the date of his move. He will be sad to leave Catatonia but is happy at the prospect of once again being closer to his family. I am an only child and son is his only grandchild. He misses my son a great deal.

I took him back to Catatonia on Saturday and called him on Sunday to check that he was okay. He wasn’t at home but, as he has a “lady friend” (who would see him more frequently than he prefers if she could) and usually goes out for Sunday lunch with her, I wasn’t unduly concerned. I should have been. He hadn’t been out to lunch, he’d fallen over and had been admitted to hospital. The hospital didn’t contact me and nor did his lady friend – until today. A good part of the day has been spent in receiving calls from aforementioned lady friend who has been intent on telling me what a bad daughter I am. I needed that ... like a hole in the head!

When not receiving accusatory calls, I've spent the day on the ‘phone to two different hospitals, trying to find out how my aged relatives are. It would be a very welcome simplicity to just hop in the car & go and see them but I have a son who attends school and a husband who flits off to Europe every three minutes. Getting to see aged relatives isn’t simple at all.

I feel absolutely miserable and I truly don’t know what to do – so, instead of sleeping, I thought I’d tell you about it all.

I will aim to write about something more cheerful in my next blog.

Grown-up Live Tweeting - The Value of Journalism Conference

2010-06-16T17:03:00.004+01:00

Last Friday, with many collies wobbling in my tummy, I did something I hadn’t done for a very long time ... I went out to work.

I was on the tube by 8.00am, dressed like a grown-up, carrying lapdog in case and was even wearing make-up.

Where did I go to? The LSE ... where I had been told to say on arrival, “I’m with the BBC” which would lead to instant access to the lecture theatres in the bowels of the earth somewhere under Holborn. It had been such a long time since I’d said “I’m with the BBC”. The words still have a nice ring to them.

I was to “live blog” at the conference on “The Value of Journalism” run by the BBC College of Journalism in conjunction with POLIS (headed up by Charlie Beckett) at the LSE. I was positioned at the very front of the Sheik Zayed Theatre and then due to an unannounced gremlin, the live blogging programme wouldn’t load correctly. I was asked by Jon Jacobs (known to his many Twitter followers as @thoroughlygood) to live tweet the event.

My usual position for tweeting is on my sofa. If I look up I can either see a wall or the television. If I look to my left, if my husband’s around, I can see a snarling face and hear the words “Twitter is a thief of time” uttered as often as I care to listen to him. Live tweeting at the conference was very, very different. If I looked up I could see the panel of journalists about whom I was tweeting – and, terrifyingly, some of them actually smiled and nodded at me. If I glanced to my right, I could see what I was tweeting on a very large screen which – if I’d have had time to think – may have caused apoplexy but I was too busy listening, paraphrasing and trying to reduce some very erudite statements and arguments into snippets of 140 characters or less.

I wobbled beforehand but didn’t really have time to wobble during. I had wished beforehand that I hadn’t managed to dye my hair an Adams’ Family shade of jet black and that I hadn’t lost my right contact lens two days prior to the conference. Naturally, everyone would notice the middle aged biddy with jet black hair squinting lopsidedly into her reading glasses as opposed to paying any attention whatsoever to the journalists on the stage. The only thing that did make my stomach churn on the actual day was seeing live tweets from some very sensible names. My heart sank when I realised that I should really be known as @hardnosedjourno on Twitter rather than @RedMummy which didn’t really seem to sound grown-up enough for the task in hand. I didn’t have time to worry about it for too long.

Prior to the event, I asked one or two trusted friends if they thought I’d be “up to it” – one suggested that the people at the conference would be able to spot a fraud a mile off and the other thought it would be quite good fun if I didn’t enjoy what was being said as, apparently, my blogs/tweets are funnier when I’m grumpy. So helpful ... both pieces of advice instilled me with huge bursts of confidence!

How much trouble could I get into if I just stated what the people on the stage were saying? These people know what they're talking about ... Jon Snow, Janine Gibson, Danny Finkelstein, Steve Hewlett, Rory Cellan-Jones inter alia ... all well-respected journalists - how could I possibly go wrong? Well, as I was tweeting under my own name, I seemed to get into a fair bit of trouble with a few of my own followers who were somewhat bombarded by many tweets with the #voj10 hash tag. I did open tweet that I was live tweeting from a conference but had little option but to wave them cheerfully on their way when they unfollowed me. Oh dear ... how will I EVER survive without them?

It was a fascinating day and a very tiring one. I can’t remember concentrating quite as hard as that – well, since the last time I concentrated as hard as that. Would I do it again? Oh yes. I’m just waiting for someone to ask me!

Husband – of course – still considers that Twitter is “a thief of time” and says I should get a “proper” job. What he means is that I should get a job that someone pays me to do. Well ... I guess, on that level, he has a point – but oh heck – it felt good to be back amongst media people again. One freebie day can’t have done too much harm, can it? The very worst thing that could happen because of it would be for him to divorce me.

Now scanning job pages in local press for work as cashier in supermarket!

The Bar Mitzvah

2010-05-30T17:11:00.003+01:00

Well, after a year of quite intensive studying involving the reading of a language with an entirely different alphabet from our own and the singing of it too, my son’s Bar Mitzvah is now IN THE PAST.

He started studying for it when we lived in Bournemouth with a very good and very religious friend of the family and he seemed to take to both the reading and the singing as a duck to water. He made rapid and excellent progress. Then we moved to London where I arranged for him to continue his studies with a local teacher who had an entirely different method of teaching from our friend in Bournemouth.

Son is an honest young man and when I asked him if he was practising he assured me that he was ... and, indeed, he had been – except he was practising in an entirely different way from the way in which he had been practising in Bournemouth.

My son is disadvantaged by having a techno-numpty for a mother ... had I have given any sensible thought to the situation, I would have got hooked up to Skype rather sooner than I have done and my son and his Bournemouth teacher could have continued studying in the way that would have been helpful to him on the day of his actual Bar Mitzvah. I didn’t.

About a month ago, we became Skyped. (Is that a valid expression? It’ll do). And that’s when son, Bournemouth friend of family and I all became aware that there were some fairly hefty gaps in what son needed to know.

I didn’t cancel the weekly lessons with the local London teacher ... it would have seemed rather churlish to do so as a great deal of effort had been made by both him and my son, but I did request that various segments be practised in rather more depth than they had been. Local London teacher’s ego appeared to kick in and he seemed to object.

Friendly Bournemouth teacher to the rescue ... son and he Skyped every evening for the past month and son once again was “up to scratch”.

And the Bar Mitzvah, which was yesterday back in Bournemouth, was WONDERFUL. Son sang clearly, tunefully and even managed to give a most confident and humorous speech afterwards to the assembled friends and family. Happy son, proud parents ... I believe son was particularly chuffed with techno-numpty mother who’d decided that the grey in her hair needed covering up a day before HIS great day, bought brown hair colour instead of mid-brown and left it on her hair for far too long whilst talking to best friend on ‘phone resulting in her husband referring to her as the mother from the Adams’ Family and son thinking it was quite cool that she looked like a Goth.

And today the mother with the Goth-like hair (who is still so proud of her son in having done so well despite having studied for one big day in two places with two different teachers with two changes of home and a change of school intervening) is attempting to get over the past year’s step back from reality and we are once again talking about Darwin as opposed to the Creation. Son’s looking forward to his party which will take place next month and I suppose the next big hurdle will be GCSEs. I’ll need even darker hair dye for those!

BBC "Over the Rainbow" Singing Event

2010-05-05T00:43:00.003+01:00

Several weeks ago, I applied for tickets to a BBC Over the Rainbow Singing Event ... last week, I found out that my application had been successful and I received two tickets to attend the Shaftesbury Theatre in London.

My son wasn’t “overly keen” on the whole idea – his tastes tend toward Gogol Bordello and Bruce Springsteen rather than stage musicals but, as Shaftesbury Avenue is not only in the heart of London’s Theatreland but also home to his favourite shop – Forbidden Planet – he agreed to accompany me.

The events are a way of attempting to get the public singing ... because singing is such a thoroughly uplifting experience.

The “Over the Rainbow” band (yes ... the same one that backs the Dorothys was on stage, the show was introduced by Tim Steiner, three of the Dorothys made an appearance, the BBC Singers undertook the task of getting the audience to sing and Jodie Prenger (who’d won the BBC’s previous collaboration with Andrew Lloyd Webber and had just completed a run as Nancy in “Oliver” ... which we’d been to see last year when Omid Djalili was playing Fagin) was on stage, too.

... And we sang! It was a MARVELLOUS evening ... and even my son whose leanings are STILL towards Gogol Bordello and Bruce Springsteen declared the evening to have been terrific fun.

Singing IS good for a body. We should all do more of it! It doesn’t matter too much if one can sing or not – just do it. It makes you feel happy!

A Rant about "America's Medicated Children"

2010-04-19T03:47:00.005+01:00

I watched BBC2’s “America’s Medicated Kids” presented by Louis Theroux on the iPlayer last night and whilst I wasn’t unsurprised at what I saw, (Why make a programme about medicated kids if there isn’t what we as “normal people” would believe to be a problem?) I was enormously saddened by the fact that the very first thing parents and doctors in the USA turn to, if they have a child whom THEY perceive as being different or difficult, is medication.

I was, as I always am when watching his programmes, incredibly impressed by Louis Theroux’s ability to handle so vast a subject so sensitively and manage to condense it into a 59 minute programme. How he manages to speak to such stupid, stupid people and keep his cool, I will never know. The more I watched these selfish people, who find rearing children just a little bit too difficult, the more I wanted to hit them.

The most salient line of the programme was, for me, the gentle reminder Louis gave to the viewer about just how much power parents have over their children. Something I am ever conscious of as a mother. I have Philip Larkin’s “This Be the Verse” pinned to the notice board in my office to remind me every single day not to mess around with my child’s head – because I could if I wanted to ... so can all parents – but why on earth would we?

How DARE these inadequate people place the calm-running of their own lives above what is actually best for their children. Is it the US culture that causes this? I suspect there are many parents in most countries who would take the easy option of having a drugged child to manipulate and mould to their own convenience, if they could – but we were only privy to US parents in Theroux’s programme.

I wonder what makes these people decide that a boisterous 6 year old, a pre-pubescent 11 year old boy and a girl of 15 who is patently full of hormones need MEDICATING. They need parents who will give them some time, who will listen to them and interact with them ... not pills.

Rant over. I probably need to have my blood pressure checked. It feels as if it’s sky high just now.

Thou Shalt Not Wear Crocs

2010-04-16T01:42:00.003+01:00

The too, too long Easter holidays are over and I am learning that living within walking distance of son’s school brings with it new responsibilities and rules ... commandments that – according to son – I am breaking every day.

Son, it would be fair to say, has the road sense of a three toed sloth ... basically NO idea of left, right, roads, zebra crossings or anything at all that would aid his staying alive on the way to school or on the way back. For this reason, we decided that for this week and this week only, we would walk him to and from school – or at least walk with him until he could see the gates and that we could see him go through them (naturally, from a respectful distance).

It is absolutely verboten to kiss son on saying goodbye to him ... although this is a rule that HE forgets and lifts face up for a quick peck before zooming towards the school entrance to join his friends.

I’ve been using the short walk to meet him in the afternoon as an opportunity to take the dog out for a brief trot. It is on these occasions that I have learnt that the wearing of Crocs is a heinous crime and a cause of massive embarrassment to son who has worked out a way of walking directly in front of me so that none of his friends who happen to glance at the pavement will be able to see what I’m wearing on my feet. Of course, I trip over him and the dog and far more attention is drawn to us than would otherwise be the case.

I am also told WHAT to wear and precisely how much make up to put on my face. I am living in Essex. However much make up I may slap on, I’m never going to present any real competition to the other mothers. I can only hope to be a pale and ghostly imitation.

I give up. I asked son if he would also like me to imitate the other Mums’ accents. He decided against that one but I have been requested not to speak at all.

As of Monday he will be walking to and from school on his own. I will be able to wear my Crocs, speak how I usually do and even go out without two tubes of slap on my face. I can barely wait.

A Concise Crisis of Confidence

2010-04-07T23:45:00.004+01:00

I’ve just glanced at my blog and realise that I’ve been spasmodically scribbling for 13 months now. I wonder why I thought I could write.

So much of what I’ve written seems trite, banal – even boring. Re-reading my self-conscious words, I wonder why I keep putting myself through this.

There are certain things I know I want to say and certain things that, to misquote Donald Rumsfeld, “I know that I know” but why on earth would I have the temerity to think that anyone would want to read about any of it?

I’ve had a too long break from writing “regularly” and my confidence seems to have completely deserted me ... not that there was much of it to start off with.

My son keeps telling my husband that I’m a writer. I’ll stick with it for a while longer. I would hate to disappoint him and, anyway, I don’t really know what else I would do in its place.

Our house is a very, very, very ... err ... NICE house?

2010-04-02T03:30:00.014+01:00

Well, after three months in the rented London Dungeon (a teeny, tiny flat that was more suited as a “pulling pad” for a single 35 year old male than it was for a family) and what has, for reasons many and varied, seemed to be the longest completion of a purchase EVER, we are – once again – installed in our own home. We are now, of course, noticing everything that’s wrong with the place. I don’t even know where to start to describe the ever-growing list of priorities that aren’t just frivolous desires but urgent imperatives.

I’ve always thought I had the ability to see past other people’s ideas of décor when I view houses. I walk around thinking “yes, a loo can go in the cupboard under the stairs” and “I can fit an en suite in there” or “let me just rip this kitchen out and start again”. Not so much “Grand Designs” as “logical enhancements”. My viewing of this house was no exception ... but what I should have been doing was asking whether there was a combi-boiler, whether there were any leaks and if the shed at the bottom of the garden was lined with asbestos. I didn’t do any of that. So desperate was I to be away from the London Dungeon and so exhausted was I from driving 50 miles each day in rush hour traffic to get my son to and from his new school, I thought – THIS house is a 3 minute walk from the school and THIS is obviously where we must be.

The house – in “estate agency speak” – is “inter-war”. It was built (or possibly propped up by the two houses either side of it, in its mid-terrace position) in 1929. It has, without doubt been “ahem” modernised ... I reckon probably sometime in the 1960s but – since then – only cosmetic changes have been made.

Coat after coat of paint has been applied to each and every inside door – without ever a thought given to planing any of the wood off prior to repainting hence, apart from the door to the only toilet – which is upstairs, NONE of the other doors in the house actually close. At least two of us can be found most mornings going cross-eyed on the landing waiting for the third to exit the toilet. And ... when one of us is lucky enough to gain access to the toilet – these are what we get to look at!

And we can look at them in the separate bathroom, too – wherein they cover the walls AND the ceiling!

I like luxury as much as the next person – but REALLY is a downstairs loo “a luxury”? Not when you’re 53 years old, you’ve had your first child at the age of 41 and you completely forgot to do your pelvic floor exercises thereafter, it isn’t ... a downstairs loo is an absolute bl**dy necessity!

The master bedroom isn’t a bad size and has elements of – if I lived in North West London – what I would call “Golders Green Gothic” about it ... but I don’t. I now live in Essex, so I believe the house’s current state of decoration could be termed “Barkingside Byzantine”.

Oh yes ... every bedroom should have its very own chandelier ...

and – naturally – covered radiators are the ultimate in good taste!

My son has opted for the smallest bedroom ... he likes “cosy”. He certainly HAS cosy. And only about a third of his treasured possessions actually fit into the cosy little room. Never mind. He has overflowed into the spare room which has melamine-clad fitted wardrobes and very useful they are, too – they’re just not quite as “attractive” as the ones in the master bedroom which have the benefit of fake antique gold “stuff” stuck all over the place.

But – that said – the master bedroom doesn’t have the benefit of an electric shower strategically placed in its corner which the spare room does have.

Of course, what would only improve both the master bedroom and the spare room would be some of these:

... very Barkingside Byzantine and scattered liberally throughout the through sitting and dining room!

I avoid looking at them too much because they make me itch to rip them off the walls.

Where do I start? And – in describing – for fear of boring you ... where do I stop?

Outside, we have a thingy that is corroded and leaks.

I don’t know what sort of a thingy it is but it looks most ominous and I think something ought to be done about it very quickly.

We also have one of these ...

... which is open to the elements at both ends and I would dearly like to pull it off the wall (and then hit the vendor and the estate agent with it ... after I’ve hit myself – of course – for having been completely STUPID).

I desperately need a job to supplement the income from our business in order to start putting into action the many, many, MANY things that need doing to this silly little house – and that’s not going to be easily achievable!

And of course, there are sadnesses ... our darling German Shepherd (who was too large and too bouncy to live in a size-challenged house that the sale of a property in Catatonia deemed was all we could afford in the outskirts of the capital) is no longer with us but having a whale of a time in 3 acres of land in Kent.

For all of the sadnesses and inconveniences, I am once again sitting on my own comfy sofa rather than the concrete couch that nearly broke my back in the London Dungeon. I have a fat Westie snuggled up to my right and an aging black cat snuggled up to my left. That HAS to be fine ... poor old moggy was used to living in the shed in our old house and is now able to spend his twilight years inside as a lapcat.

I like living in Essex! I never thought I would, but after three months of living in the environs of where the London Dungeon was situated, I find Essex friendly ... and it’s wonderful to be within walking distance of a very cosmopolitan High Street. We're quite close to BNP heartland so, I have great pleasure in thumbing my nose at Nick Griffin because I LIKE THE MIX!

I’m enjoying using my own cooking utensils again – now crammed into a too, too small kitchen, and the smell of the first home-made chicken soup bubbling on the hob ready for Friday night in three months is a plus! There are some things that are absolutely okay about my world – and, of course, the very best okay bit is the fact that I have a happy kid. His education and the way he talks about his new school make every single inconvenience pale into total insignificance.

We are HOME.

Please bear with me ... I'm getting there!

2010-02-28T09:29:00.005Z

I’m very conscious of the fact that it has been a very long time since I last wrote a blog. I’ve WANTED to write a blog ... it’s not like I haven’t got anything to say – I have and that’s the problem! I have rather too much to say and - due to the ongoing, rather strange and very stressful circumstances that I’m living through at the moment - it’s probably wiser that I don’t say ANY of it!

How does the expression “a still tongue in a wise head” translate to blogging in the 21st Century? It doesn’t – easily – and as the word “wise” never really sits comfortably in the same sentence as the word “me”, the premise isn’t too relevant just now anyway! “Sensibly still fingertips at the end of madly gyrating arms belonging to a body with a very puzzled head on its shoulders” is awkward terminology and makes me sound like a human windmill but it’s probably a more accurate description of the rather dark and miserable place that I’m occupying just now.

So, for the moment, please forgive me but I’m keeping rather quiet. I shall return and I will write what I really do have to say.

NEW YEAR - ALL CHANGE!

2010-01-13T11:41:00.003Z

Well, here we are in London ... well in the outskirts of the capital at any rate. My son’s first day at his new school was last Tuesday – rapidly followed by two days off due to the inclement weather conditions (which didn’t actually stop US from getting there but “Health & Safety issues” made it necessary to close the school for fear that children may have thrown a few snowballs at each other).

He was rather circumspect after his first day ... he’d been off school since I removed him from the Arts & Media College in Bournemouth in November 2009 and, to be honest, I think ANY school would have been anathema after that length of time. He’s been partaking of private maths tuition and his Ma’s slightly deranged take on home education since I withdrew him from the Bournemouth school. I’m not exactly sure how much he’s learnt over the past couple of months but he’s now not quite as fearful of dealing with all things numeric as he used to be, he knows all about The Goon Show and can sing “The Ying Tong Song” very well indeed.

I was VERY edgy about his reticence after his first day and you can only imagine how relieved I was when I collected him on his second day (which turned out to be last Friday) when he was grinning from ear to ear and telling me how much he’d enjoyed himself, how great the teachers were and how puzzled he was that two young ladies had asked him out. I am blessed with a son who’s neither aware of how handsome he is, nor how cool. He was very bemused indeed that anyone of the opposite sex would be interested in a “nerd” such as he thinks he is!

He had homework to do over the weekend and even set about that with gusto. I expect the novelty will wear off soon and we will settle into a less excited routine but how very good it is to have a kid who can’t wait to get to school each day.

The house is all but sold in Bournemouth – we’re due to complete by the end of this month and, not being a great one for “hanging around”, we’ve already found a house very close to his new school indeed and have had our offer accepted on it. Hopefully we should be installed therein by the end of February which will be marvellous ... the house is truly nothing special – just a three bedroomed, solid, terraced family home – but how good it will be to move out of the tiny rented flat we’ve been in since the first day of the year and once again be able to have our “own” stuff around us. It will also be very good not to have to travel 48 miles each day on 2 school runs!

My last blog "The Lunatics Are Running The Asylum" attracted a great deal of publicity thanks to that ever-delightful and kindest of Tweeters, Stephen Fry, but - inspite of hearing responses to it from the Headmaster of my son's previous school and a representative of a large teaching union on the BBC's "South Today" and on Radio Solent - I still have had not ONE word of explanation nor an apology for the mismanagement of my son's education at that school ... other than the Union representative stating during his interview that my blog had not been "helpful" to the "professionals". Oh, I am SO very sorry ... would that these "professionals" had have been "helpful" to my son!

So, we’ve had a tumultuous few months – an emotional roller coaster during which there have been many occasions when I’ve questioned the logic of the decisions I’ve made and the decisions following the “big decision” haven’t been easy at all. We’ve sadly had to have our much loved big dog re-homed as it just wasn’t feasible to bring her with to London; we’ve had to up sticks and move from a very comfortable home indeed firstly to a rented, furnished flat; we’re still coming to terms with the implications that moving may have for our business and a lot of time is spent HOPING that trade will be as good as or better for us in London than it was in Bournemouth – but the main thing is we have a son who is now enjoying going to school and is getting the sort of education that every kid deserves to have. And THAT is worth all the doubts, fears, uncertainties and soul-searching.

THE LUNATICS ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM

2009-11-25T16:52:00.005Z

There is a school in Bournemouth which was, until a few years ago, a “Boys’ School”. It didn’t have a very good reputation – and deservedly so.

Then it changed its name. It became an Arts and Media College – and some of us “fell for it”. I am the proud mother of a hugely artistic son. I’m not proud for pride’s sake. My boy is very talented and has been published. He lives, eats, drinks and breathes art – it is quite simply “who he is”.

When the time came, a couple of years ago, for us to choose his secondary school, his father and I scratched our heads and worried a great deal. Bournemouth is rather better known for catering to an aged population than it is for its merits in either primary or secondary education. It would have been a “nice thought” to have my son crammed for the Grammar School entrance examination. He isn’t very good at Maths. The thought crossed our minds but I worried about what would happen when the “cramming” ended – and, to be honest, the Grammar School isn’t “grounded” in the Arts and our son needed a place that would help him to channel his talents.

I “did” the Open Day circuit and ultimately decided that the school that had the best facilities for an artistic kid was the one called an “Arts and Media College”. Everything that a child with a leaning towards the arts would need was PHYSICALLY there. I couldn’t fault the Arts studios, the state of the art drama and stage equipment nor, indeed, did the Radio studio seem to be too out of date.

My son started at the Arts and Media College at the beginning of Year 7 in September 2008. And the dream ended.

He was SO excited on the morning of his first day. The occasion was special enough for both his father and I to take him there – he was just a bit nervous ... but so was I on my first day at “big school” and who wouldn’t be? It wouldn’t seem to be quite right walking into a new environment cocksure and brimming with abundant confidence, would it? But some kids did. His father and I sat in our car watching what seemed to be a very vulnerable little boy walk in – thankfully – with a friend from primary school who’d arrived at the same time – but other boys hurtled in, charged in, blustered in and barged in – were they older children? No – the first day of each school year is for Year 7 children alone.

When I collected him in the afternoon, my son was quiet. I asked how the day had gone and he told me that he was in a class with only one other boy he’d known from primary school and most of the other boys in the class seemed rough, unfriendly and “bullish”. Some of them had older brothers at the school – they, apparently, were the ones who were the roughest.

Day 2 was less “special” than day 1 and on collecting him when school finished, I have to say that I actually felt quite intimidated by the raw, pubescent aggression that tumbled out of the building at 3 o’clock. My son, when he got into the car, was even quieter than he had been the day before.

Fast forward 18 months.

Every school day for the past academic year and a half my son has PLEADED with me to be allowed to stay at home. And every morning, I felt as if I was being the worst mother on earth by insisting that he WAS, indeed, going to school. If only I could have been just slightly reassured on collecting him each afternoon – but I wasn’t. Each day, it seemed that worse things were happening to him. He is a child who likes to learn. He is eager for knowledge. Each day, his “legal right” to a decent education seemed to be a completely alien concept for the members of staff at the Arts & Media College to get to grips with.

I am not, by nature, a molly-coddler. I know EXACTLY who my son is. He’s an artistic kid but no angel – quite capable of naughtiness and there are bits of me that punch the air in glee about that. I was no “angel” at school, myself ... fortunately I had an “air of innocence” that got me out of many a scrape.

He is an artistic child – not a wimpish one. He has a tendency to be a “thinker” and one who tries to rationalise the actions of those around him. I can’t blame him for doing that ... I don’t know whether it’s right or wrong, but I do it myself.

He has spent the last 18 months trying to rationalise the actions of lunatics – and for his efforts in so doing, he – as one of the more studious children at his school, was shouted at by his teachers when he required explanation about a lesson because his “teachers” – who often weren’t teachers at all, but teaching assistants, were so busy trying to keep the levels of aggression down in their classes and the “easiest” kids to shout at were the ones who wouldn’t shout back.

In 18 months, my son had 5 pieces of homework. Not 5 pieces of homework per night or per week. No; just 5 pieces of homework during his ENTIRE time at the school. There were some subjects in which he never had the same teacher for two consecutive lessons. The school appeared to be staffed by supply teachers and under-qualified teaching assistants. How wrong of me, I am leaving out members of staff who seem to have strange titles such as “Achievement Coordinators”. Their role, it would seem, is to smooth things over when the crowd control of the supply teachers and the teaching assistants fails to work properly. They don’t actually seem to do much about “achievement” at all. And I mustn’t forget the congenial Acting Headmaster whom, if a parent writes to him, fails to respond unless nagged ... rather a lot. On the last occasion when I wrote to him, I did – after many enquiries about whether I was going to get a reply – actually receive a ‘phone call from him.

He told me that the two days I’d requested for my son to be absent from school were authorised and that he’d had a very amiable chat with him about the various and very real grievances that I had written about. He also told me that he intended “consulting” my son on a frequent and regular basis because it was very useful for him to know what was happening in Year 8. I pinched myself quite hard and, with as much dignity as I could muster, asked him if it was not HIS job to know what was going on in his school with the help of the teaching staff rather than relying on a pupil to tell him of such. The fact that the pupil was my son is neither here nor there but the “legal right of a child to a good education” should not, in my opinion, include being a “lookout” for the Acting Headmaster.

Well, at least I was safe in the knowledge that the two days that my son would be absent from school had been authorised by the “man (not very) in charge”. I was stunned to receive a letter from one of the “Achievement Coordinators” a few weeks later asking me to justify why my son had been absent as his absence had NOT been authorised. I responded in writing, citing my conversation with the Acting Headmaster and expressing disbelief at the communication between the various staffing departments within the school. I delivered the letter by hand to the school one morning after dropping my son off. I saw (with my own eyes as opposed to borrowed ones) the School Receptionist open my letter. I heard no more until 10 days ago when I received a curtly worded text from the school DEMANDING that I give them an explanation for my son’s UNAUTHORISED absences. I blew.

During his 18 months at the Arts & Media College with really very excellent facilities for an artistic child, my son has been subjected to physical bullying and appalling mental intimidation. I do not believe he has learnt anything at all. I drove – with my husband – to the school and exercised my right as a parent to take him out of there. I asked to see the Acting Headmaster but he was apparently in a Disciplinary Meeting. Why wasn’t I, in the least, surprised? Instead, I was apologised to by two “Achievement Coordinators” who sent a timid looking boy (whose education appeared to comprise being at the beck and call of the School Receptionist) to get my son. My son arrived in Reception and I asked him to go and collect his PE kit. He did – and WE TOOK HIM HOME.

I am home educating him until the end of this term and next term he starts at a new school in London. It doesn’t have “Arts” or “Media” in its name – it doesn’t have to ... it has a reputation for absolutely no bullying at all, an ethos of celebration of children’s achievements and very close ties to Chelsea Art School. Well done, LEA – we are selling up and taking a severe downgrading in housing and monetary well-being because you are unable to provide our child with his legal right to a decent education.

A few weeks ago, I read in the Bournemouth Echo that a great deal of money had been allocated to refurbish schools in the Dorset area. Hello! LEA – are you listening? Get a load of this:

You do not need to refurbish school buildings. You need to spend every available penny that you have on employing some decent teachers who aren’t afraid to take charge of the children in your care, provide those who need discipline with it and impart your knowledge to those children who want to learn rather than shout at them, because they’re the kids who you know very well “won’t answer back”. You need to be in charge of the asylum – because currently, the lunatics are running the show and you are NOT – repeat NOT – providing the children in your care with their legal right to a decent education. You do, dear LEA need to get your act together.

The Perfect Stranger

2009-11-17T18:21:00.002Z

I have a friend called Katie. I met her on Twitter. She writes very beautifully but doesn't actually believe that she's a writer. I think she is. Here's what she's written:

A week, maybe two, has passed since the story began and, oddly, I have no exact memory of it starting but something must have triggered a spark … a spark that is now becoming a daily glow.

Most of my time during the day is spent alone. I do the laundry, ironing, cleaning and I spend time on a site called Twitter where I can chat to thousands of people. It’s like opening a huge window and getting a full blown view of the world and it’s also a great place to make new friends and now something totally unexpected has happened … I have met the perfect stranger.

The perfect stranger knows nothing about me. I can be sitting here in my PJs or still wearing yesterday’s makeup – it makes no difference. I can write my thoughts or just share a moment and it’s like magic, the perfect stranger writes back. This is something that has never happened before to me, it’s almost like having a secret diary that talks back to you. Like I said … magic.

So what is perfect? Perfect is always going to mean something slightly different to each individual. For me, it’s finding something or someone that I’ve been consciously or sub-consciously looking for, then at exactly the right moment you find it. That’s what makes it perfect.

Having a complete stranger read and listen to what you’re saying and then taking the time to write back, with no judgment, no stupid remarks or quirky comments - just quiet understanding is perfect. It’s more than perfect - it’s amazing. Sometimes I write something that I think is completely “off the wall”. Where on earth did that thought come from? That’s the type of thing I don’t even need to explain. The stranger answers and leaves me with the feeling of not being quite so crazy after all.

Yesterday, I summoned up the courage to write this: “You are the perfect stranger, and if I were a writer, I would write a story”. This morning, I got the reply: “Write the story, then you will be a writer”.

I did.

Fish and Visitors

2009-11-05T11:27:00.003Z

This article was first published by The Bournemouth Echo on 26th October 2009 and also by The Blog Paper on the same date.

Benjamin Franklin once said “Fish and visitors stink after three days”. I would agree with that.

I have just had my aged, spinster cousin to stay for two weeks. I usually have her to stay two or three times a year “for a week” which invariably organically grows into a fortnight or three weeks. A fortnight, on this occasion, was at least (if I’d have actually taken note of the Franklin quote) eleven days too many. I returned her to her own home on Saturday and believe that if she’d have stayed just one day more, I would have had to have been sectioned.

The people who follow me on Twitter were becoming used to my references to “Fanny in the corner”. My cousin’s name is not Fanny but it would have seemed rude to have used her real name – and, anyway, Fanny suits her. The line “Fanny in the corner” was, of course, on Twitter open to many interpretations – NONE of which did I understand!

My cousin is a frighteningly skinny Fanny. I’m fairly convinced that the only time she eats a square meal is when she visits us although she insists that she is very independent, goes out shopping every day and “takes care of herself”. How, then, does she always manage to look healthier and heavier after her visits to us than she does when she arrives?

She is very, very deaf and barely understands a word that anyone says to her – unless the word “food” is mentioned. Her ears suddenly clear at breakfast, lunchtime and at dinner. And although she doesn’t speak very clearly either these days, she speaks clearly enough to say “Oh, okay then” when I ask her if she’d like extra toast at breakfast time, two rounds of sandwiches rather than one at lunchtime and double portions of everything at dinner time.

She doesn’t “do” much when she’s with us. She’s an early riser, enjoys a leisurely breakfast which “has to be digested” properly by sitting in her dressing gown in one corner of the sofa until at least 11.00am, after which she goes back upstairs to perform her ablutions. She manages to get back downstairs just in time for her two rounds of sandwiches at lunchtime.

Several attempts at conversation are started but not finished. I am hoarse from responding to her fangled speech and however loudly I speak, it is never quite loudly enough. Fanny’s afternoons are spent “reading” which involves opening a book and then falling asleep and dribbling on the unturned page.

When I start to prepare dinner, Fanny follows me into the kitchen and manages to stand exactly where I need to be at any one given point in time. I am not a patient person. After about ten minutes, I gently say to her ... “You’re on holiday – why don’t you go and sit down” which she does & falls asleep again until dinner is ready.

After dinner, I think she enquires whether I’d like any help in clearing up in the kitchen. Last time I said “Yes”, she not only attempted to empty the scraps from the plates into the waste disposal but also the cutlery. These days, I say, “No, you’re on holiday – why don’t you just relax” – which she does, once again installing herself in the corner of the sofa.

She is of the belief that as my son and I spend a fair deal of time on our own because my husband works away from home quite a lot, I am in need of adult company which means that she will stay up until I suggest that it’s “probably” her bedtime. She’s probably right ... I probably would appreciate a little adult company but she isn’t able to provide this as mainly, once the TV is switched on she, I think, tells me that she’s finding whatever happens to be on, very interesting and promptly falls asleep and dribbles on the open TV guide.

Occasionally I ask her if she’s still interested in what we’re watching which causes her to sit bolt upright and tell me that she IS watching the television and that she’s NOT asleep, the exertions of which cause her to fall asleep again almost immediately. She does, however, wake up when I mention that I’m going to make a cup of tea and she also manages to speak clearly enough to respond to my enquiries regarding biscuits. The answer never varies – “Oh a few of the ones I had last night, would be nice”. Once refreshments have been consumed the sleeping and dribbling resume quite quickly again.

At about midnight, I say to her that I’m thinking of going to bed. I am lying. I turn the television off & Fanny prepares to go upstairs. I am to be kissed goodnight. This isn’t a pleasant experience but a small price to pay to have my sofa to myself for an hour or two before I actually DO go to bed and, I can wash the dribbly kiss off in the downstairs loo once I can hear that she’s at the top of the stairs.

I’m about the only member of my family who bothers with her and she does seem to enjoy her stays with us. But three days WOULD be enough and, at the risk of appearing on some Age Concern hit list, I’m prepared to admit that I am truly not a very nice person!

How to Have a Really Good Evening

2009-10-26T17:08:00.003Z

This article was first published on The Bournemouth Echo's website on 19th October 2009 and by The Blog Paper on 20th October 2009.

There are, of course, many and varied ways of having a good evening but I reckon the one that my son and I had yesterday would take some beating.

It’s always a “good thing” to support a worthy cause ... in the current economic climate, it’s not always possible to do as much as one would like to – but if I have the opportunity to do “a little something”, then I do. Leukaemia Research is a charity very close to my heart – not least because my favourite cousin died of leukaemia in her early 30s just a month before my son was born, 12½ years ago.

Last night, the Criterion Theatre in London’s Piccadilly Circus freely opened its doors to be taken over by Leukaemia Research to host “A Special Audience with Stephen Fry” preceded by a champagne reception for a few hundred lucky people. My son and I were amongst those lucky people.

The Reception began at 6.30pm and prior to our National Treasure coming into the Reception, Alastair Campbell mingled and chatted amongst us. Alastair has supported the charity since his best friend, John Merritt, died of leukaemia and then tragically John’s daughter succumbed to the disease too. He’s a friendly man although – as an avid fan of Burnley Football Club – he was clearly distressed that “his” team had lost to Blackburn Rovers the day before. I hope that the Audience with Mr Fry went some way to cheering him up.

Nigella Lawson was also at the Reception and was gracious enough to write a note to my husband who is a great fan of hers and willingly posed for a photograph with me and my son. She asked if my husband was keen on cookery programmes. Naturally my response was “Oh, yes”. It would have been infradig to have been more honest and to tell her that he has more prurient thoughts than cuisine on his mind when he sees her on television. She’s a beautiful, intelligent lady and has at least two more outstanding assets than just her culinary expertise. Mick Hucknall of Simply Red was there and didn’t seem too displeased when I told him that we liked his music. He was also kind enough to have his photograph taken with my son.

Another guest was Ed Victor who is a very well known literary agent. I would very much have liked to have met him to tell him that I am, at least in my own not-so-humble opinion, an undiscovered literary genius but sadly I didn’t get the opportunity to meet him. I was, however, so pleased that he was there as – had it not have been for Leukaemia Research – he wouldn’t have been anywhere. Ten years ago, on the day of his 60th birthday, he was diagnosed with the disease and it was purely through the wonderful research funded by the charity that he survives in good health a decade on. It was Ed Victor’s idea to organise occasional “Special Audiences” with various celebrities in order to raise money for the charity.

One person who I was lucky and privileged enough to meet was the original Calendar Girl. Not Julie Waters – who played her in the 2003 film – but the real life lady, Annie Clarke whose husband had died of leukaemia and who raises money for and, who with her friends, gave a great deal of “exposure” to the charity’s work.

Shortly before 7.00pm, a very tall man appeared in the room. I’m sure that just about everyone in the UK (if not, since the advent of global sale of television programmes, the entire world) is aware that Stephen Fry is a witty, enormously intelligent, erudite speaker, talented actor and brilliant writer. Those attributes would be enough to make most people admire him. I do. I also LIKE him. He is kind, generous of nature, warm, friendly and has the most wonderful way of making everyone he speaks with feel as if they are really the most important person in the world to him. I was especially overwhelmed when my son (who was the very youngest person there), bravely and with great aplomb introduced himself to Mr Fry using his Twitter name – and Stephen, bless him, repeated his Twitter name and then greeted him, without ANY prompting whatsoever, using my son’s real life name. This man must have a memory the size of this planet! My son, who’s a talented young artist, gave a drawing he’d done of Stephen to him – at which point, the splendid Mr Fry knelt down and my son forgot to be grown-up, couldn’t help himself and gave this great, gentle man a hug. I chatted to Stephen for several minutes, easily fell prey to his delightful charms and hugs, kisses and photographs ensued.

The actual show began at 8.00pm. It was an intimate “audience”. The BBC’s Alan Yentob interviewed Stephen about his life, his work, his likes and dislikes, his successes and his self-perceived failures. He was astonishingly open about his bi-polarity. He had the audience laughing and crying. Two hours passed in a flash and members of the audience were given the opportunity of asking questions. Stephen answered each question with characteristic humour, empathy, kindness and honesty.

My son desperately wanted the chance of another chat with our National Treasure so, after the show, we went to the Stage Door. I managed to get my ‘phone’s camera muddled up with its video recorder so we now have a recorded moving memento of the evening.

I’m rarely at a loss for words but I truly can’t find the right ones to impart how wonderful the evening was. Perhaps my son described it in exactly the right way ... “It was the best time I’ve ever, ever, EVER had”. I concur.

If you ever have the chance of seeing Stephen on stage or of meeting him – do it! I can assure you that it really is a very good way of spending an evening.

(If you’re interested in learning more about the wonderful work that Leukaemia Research enables, do – PLEASE – visit their website at http://www.lrf.org.uk/)

2 o'clock in the morning

2009-10-19T15:55:00.001+01:00

(This blog was first published on the Bournemouth Echo's website and also by The Blog Paper on 1st October 2009).

The house is mine. It is quiet apart from the low hum of the dishwasher, the beeping of the ‘fridge freezer which my husband, for the third time in six weeks, has tried to fix by defrosting the already pristine and frost-free freezer. He is slowly coming around to the idea that we do actually need a new one ... and it hurts him so!

I can hear the sounds of a sleeping house – at least one with two sleepy dogs in it. I have a small West Highland White Terrier sprawled, tummy upwards, at my side and an enthusiastically idiotic German Shepherd also lying on her back at my feet. Occasionally one of them snuffles or groans slightly and it is a very good feeling to be alone but in such congenially uncommunicative company.

I moan a great deal of the time about suffering from insomnia but at this hour, my gripes are very few as I question who exactly I would be if I didn’t suffer from it. I am a creature of the night. If I need to think about something carefully and logically I do so far better after midnight than I ever manage to during the daytime.

If there is ONE element of creativity in me, it never rears its “innovative” head during daylight hours. I just never feel quite confident enough during the daytime to write about how I’m feeling or anything about which I feel strongly; under cover of darkness, however, my fingers struggle to keep pace with the rapid release of some often very mundane thoughts – perhaps mistakenly assuming that what I have to impart is somehow important.

Sometimes I take a look at the time and think, “Heck, my son has to be at school in less than six hours” but such thoughts are fleeting and I don’t take much notice of them. This is my time.

Oh, Baby, Baby - It's a Wild World

2009-10-01T14:09:00.003+01:00

This blog was first published on The Bournemouth Echo's website and by The Blog Paper on 24th September 2009.

About 5 minutes ago, I had a baby – hang on ... it was over 12 years ago – but my instinct to protect my son hasn’t decreased with the years and is probably more highly developed now, than it ever was when he was a babe-in-arms.

It’s been a roller-coaster of a week ... starting off with my son, once again, having been most dreadfully upset at being given “a hard time” at school and being distressed at being disrupted in his lessons by classmates whose only ambitions in life appear to become shelf-stackers at supermarkets.

Once again, on collecting from school, a very sullen and disgruntled little boy got into my car. And a very vociferous little boy started the familiar routine of pleading with me to be home-educated. I have to say, that home-education is a thought that crosses my mind with great frequency but I’ve always discounted it as I know my son and I also know myself pretty well. I quite simply would not have the patience to educate my son, myself, at home.

I am an impatient person and have a tendency to metaphorically tap my fingers in a most irritating fashion when people don’t “catch on” quickly enough for my liking – not an ideal trait for imparting anything to my son who, if he doesn’t want to know what one is talking about, is a manipulative little “wotsit” and will quite deftly bring the conversation around to what HE wants to discuss. We would not be a good teacher/pupil combo!

I wrote a polite but firmly worded letter to my son’s class teacher and also the headteacher querying why there appeared to be so much disruption in his school and why was he not getting what either he, or I, considered to be a fair crack at the whip at a decent education. Yesterday I received a call from the headteacher assuring me that my queries would be looked into and meanwhile, he’d spoken to my son who had voiced his grievances most eloquently and was now considered by the headteacher to be a child with whom it would be most useful to “have regular meetings”. I asked why. Apparently, as a “mature child”, he can impart very articulately what’s “going on” in his class. I wondered for a nano-second if I was going quite mad and then couldn’t help myself but say: “That’s NOT HIS JOB; that’s YOUR job. My son’s responsibility at school is to be a decent kid, commit to learning things and to try his very hardest to do that. And YOUR responsibility is to teach him stuff – not ask him to be your undercover man to find out “what’s going down in his year”.

Of course, son is now back to “running on calm” at school – helped, not least, by having been elected to be Form President ... although there didn’t appear to be much competition to gain this role. (I think I refuse to believe that any vote-rigging occurred). Nevertheless, son feels somewhat vindicated and seems to want to give his classmates a forum to express how they’re feeling and a forum for HIM to ask them why they feel the need to disrupt classes.

And I am confused. And the thought of home-education crossed my mind to such an extent in the last week that I’ve actually made enquiries about it and asked for some advice. Some advice was for and some against. I’ve decided that I come down more on the side of the “against” camp than on the side of the “fors”. Someone said to me that school isn’t JUST about education – there are other, equally important factors – such as social interaction with people who one may like or one may whole-heartedly dislike but it’s necessary to learn the skills needed to cope with both. And, so, my son who, of course, is still my baby IS going to have to learn that it’s a wild world.

But no-one can stop me from worrying!

VERY STUPID INDEED

2009-09-24T14:31:00.003+01:00

This blog first appeared on The Bournemouth Echo website on 17th September 2009 and in The Blog Paper on the same date.

Oh, what a miserable day I’ve had. I sometimes suffer with conjunctivitis and every now and then it flares up – which it did last night. I wear “day and night” contact lenses which I can sleep in. I’m meant to remove them and give my eyes “a day off” once a week. I rarely do.

So, I removed my contact lenses, peered into my 3 x magnifying mirror to see the blurred reflection of a rabbit with myxomatosis staring back. That would have been me, then. I fumbled around in the bathroom cabinet and eventually found some eye drops and gel and squirted and applied both liberally. And then I went to bed.

When I woke up, I found my glasses, and stupidly decided to look in the mirror. Where was the rabbit? It had been replaced with a boxer on the losing end of a bout with Prince Naseem. I couldn’t actually see my eyes at all, inspite of squinting out of them – they appeared to have been replaced by two small aubergines.

I couldn’t get on with any office work as staring at the screen was hurting me and words just looked a blurred, indecipherable mass. Heavens, I must have been feeling pretty grim ... I haven’t even been on Twitter much today!

I could see that the carpet was in dire need of a vacuum (I may be using “see” in a metaphorical sense, having a priori knowledge that owning a full-coated German Shepherd who moults continually in combination with a brown carpet - after 2 days, I KNOW it needs vacuuming whether I can see it or not). So, I vacuumed and figured I couldn’t cause too much harm by giving the kitchen floor a good mopping.

I’d very much hoped that my husband would be home in time to collect our son from school, but he wasn’t. I left in plenty of time to collect said son - as I was not going to risk driving at any speed whatsoever. And son, on getting into the car, took one look at me and said, “Are you okay? You’re crying” – which, of course, I wasn’t but the idea of a good sob at that time didn’t seem to be a totally off-the-wall prospect at all. I restrained myself and, very carefully, drove home.

I asked son what sort of a day he’d had at school and, very stoically, he said “Good, thanks”. Except from what I could see of the expression on his face and hear from the tone in his voice, this wasn’t really the case at all.

Year 8 seems to be proving to be a repetition of last year ... son is unhappy at being disrupted by noisy and unruly classmates and saying that he can’t concentrate on his lessons because of this. I am a vile mother. For once, I didn’t pursue his response to get to the bottom of what had actually happened at school today. And, indeed, this is a story for another blog, on another day.

I sat down and realised that my husband would be expecting a home-cooked meal when he arrived home and then remembered that I hadn’t been shopping because I’d been feeling so rough. It’s a good job that my husband is set on a course of trying to regain a youthful physique. (Please excuse me while I snort with laughter for a second or two).

He’s all but stopped eating lunch and now goes from breakfast to dinner without a morsel of food passing his lips. He’s also keen on reducing his carbohydrate intake – so I thought I could make a very sparsely topped Shepherd’s Pie – not least because I only had 4 VERY small potatoes in stock.

Chopping onions and conjunctivitis is not a good combination. By the time I’d finished that particular task, I could barely see anything at all. I managed to pour some oil into the pan, fry the onions, add the minced meat, chopped mushrooms, and tomatoes and then, as I usually do, I reached for the Worcestershire Sauce – and proceeded to pour several generous splashes of balsamic vinegar into the browning mince. I added about double the amount of Worcestershire Sauce to cover up my mistake and hoped for the best.

The result was a slightly more piquant-than-usual Shepherd’s Pie and no-one complained ... or died.

And now, having administered my fourth squirts of eye drops and fourth splodge of gel to my sore eyes, they’re still sore but not AS sore and still swollen but not AS swollen and I am resolving – as I always do – to remember the importance of sticking to the regime of giving my eyes a “day off” from contact lenses, once a week. I expect that resolution will fly out of the window like all previous ones have done and once again, I will kick myself for sometimes being VERY STUPID INDEED.

9/11

2009-09-14T15:28:00.003+01:00

This blog first appeared on The Bournemouth Echo website and was also published by The Blog Paper on the same date.

My son was nearly 4½ years old on 11th September 2001. He was taking part in his first school Sports Day. The weather had decreed that the Sports Day planned for the previous term had been delayed until the start of the new school year.

Parents had gathered to watch 28 young children go through their paces. My son and his best friend hadn’t quite got the hang of what they should be doing. One of the “obstacles” on the circuit was a small tent. They abandoned running around the rest of the course and took up residence in it. And they laughed and they giggled. And despite the encouragement they were hearing from their teachers, they stayed in that tent and continued to laugh and giggle.

I couldn’t help myself ... my son and his friend looked so cute, I had no option but to stop joining in with the encouraging noises that their teachers were making and to laugh and giggle along with them. My husband was steadfastly continuing the encouragement whilst I could barely contain my mirth at these two happy kids having a thoroughly wonderful time in a tent whilst the rest of Sports Day continued around them.

Husband received a telephone call and had to go to work. Sports Day was nearing its end & we sought permission from the head teacher to take our son home a little early. On arrival at home, I switched on the radio to catch the news. And that was when I heard about what was happening in New York.

My towers were under threat. I ensured that my son was happy and occupied and switched the television on. And for the next 18 hours I didn’t move. “My towers”. I had lived in America, in Philadelphia. My ex was a pilot. We visited New York frequently and the last time I’d seen my towers had been 10 years previously when we’d flown in a Cessna by them en route from Connecticut back to Philadelphia. And I had fainted. I suffer from vertigo and whilst flying doesn’t usually affect me, I knew the height of the towers and had a “reference point” so I simply passed out. And now I would never be able to fly past them again.

I know I’d taken care of my son – tell-tale signs of having made something to eat for him, and having bathed him and put him to bed were evidential – but I couldn’t remember doing any of those things. I seemed to be welded to a seat in front of the TV.

The world had changed and it would never be the same again. A “war on terror” had begun and, however hard I tried, I couldn’t see that there would ever be an end to it. I still can’t. And I still can’t close my eyes at night without seeing images of the ‘planes flying into those towers or of the towers collapsing. The world order changed that day and it is never going to change back.

In 2006 on 11th September, I felt compelled to do “something” ... anything ... to release the emotion that I felt about that day. I’m no artist but with paper and charcoal I drew my interpretation of Ground Zero. And, in some way, found some sort of comfort for having got onto paper that which I couldn’t put into words. That picture hangs in our hall – barely on show, mostly hidden by a tall cupboard ... but I know it’s there.

Eight years on, I don’t need to watch the many programmes about 9/11. I live with that day in my head. I hope the images of it remain in other people’s heads forever too. If we refuse to forget, then maybe we can remember to not let it happen again. I don’t know. I only hope.

From Cool to School in 48 hours

2009-09-09T21:01:00.006+01:00

This blog first appeared on The Bournemouth Echo website on 9th September 2009 and was also published by The Blog Paper on the same date.

I’ve just spent six weeks with one of the coolest kids in Bournemouth. I am not just talking “cool”; I’m talking UBER-COOL. My son has been on school holidays for a month and a half – routine was abandoned to the four winds and, for the main part, inspite of an odd day here and there when the uneasiness of slight boredom crept in – he has occupied himself very happily by posting his artwork to an arts website and writing reviews of comic books for his blog. The weather – as we know – wasn’t up to much but we managed to have a really enjoyable time together.

We didn’t have a “summer holiday” this year as finances wouldn’t allow – although, the end of the school holiday culminated in a weekend in London. It would probably have been less expensive for us fly from Hurn to “somewhere” abroad for a week than the exorbitant amount of money we managed to get through in the capital. Never mind – it’s “only” money, isn’t it?

My son, at the tender age of 12, found his spiritual home at Camden Market. He’s a tad young to actually “be” a Goth or an Emo but his taste in clothing very definitely veers towards “Emo” and Camden is, indeed, Emo heaven. He’s been after a long leather trench coat for a very long time. He hasn’t actually nagged about getting one as he’s far too subtle for that – he just bookmarked so many webpages showing the sort of coat he wanted that my PC very nearly ground to a complete halt. I’ve now been able to delete all the bookmarks because, at Camden, he found one. Kerching. He also found some absolutely inappropriate tee-shirts (the kind that make grandparents spin in their graves prior to their actual demise). Kerching. We drew the line at some truly vile black boots which appeared to have coiled springs located in their soles.

From Camden, where 1½ hours’ parking cost us nearly £7.00, we headed towards Shaftesbury Avenue where the iconic Forbidden Planet shop is situated. Another paradise for artistic kids and adults who like comic books, models of comic book heroes and posters. I didn’t grumble (and what’s more I didn’t allow my husband to grumble either) when son chose a couple of books he wanted to buy. I’m just very happy that I have a child who enjoys reading. I realised we’d actually managed to find bargain parking in Camden when I was charged £11.00 for 2 hours in an NCP in Gerard Place in Chinatown. Kerching. My only solace was that public transport for three of us would have equalled the amount we spent and at least we had the convenience of having the car with us. But, by the time evening came and we were due to see Omid Djalili as Fagin in “Oliver” at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, I’d decided that I’d actually had enough driving in London for one day and we actually took cabs to and from the theatre. Kerching.

The show was marvellous – it far surpassed my expectations (because, having been a very regular theatre-goer when I lived in London, I’ve sadly now become accustomed to being rather disappointed by touring theatre companies’ visits to Bournemouth which, try as they might, simply DO NOT match up to West End theatre productions). Three seats in the stalls, however (well ... if I’m going to see a good show, I want to sit in good seats – very good seats) cost us more than two nights in our hotel. Kerching. Never mind. This was our summer holiday!

We headed back to Bournemouth on Sunday – early in the day – in order (a) that we wouldn’t be tempted to spend any more money and (b) that the uber-cool kid in the long leather coat could get an early night or two before re-starting school today. And yesterday son’s face showed the benefit of the first early night – the mandatory Goth dark circled eyes had disappeared and a 12 year old boy was bright-eyed and bushy tailed. But as the day wore on the bright-eyed kid transformed into a very, very subdued little boy.

He’d had a hard, hard year in Year 7 last year. He’d been looking forward to attending a school with fantastic facilities and specialising in his favourite subject – art – but the reality of actually being there had hit him with a huge shock. He’d been the victim of several very nasty bouts of bullying (actually resulting in the suspension of several older boys); his lessons had been continually disrupted by constant changes in staff and really he was NOT looking forward to his first day back in Year 8. When I took him to school this morning, he looked very young and very forlorn (his appearance not actually being helped by the fact that age 11 jackets and trousers were miles too short for him and age 12 apparel is miles too long). He didn’t glance back at me when he got out of the car but it pained me to leave him there and I have been worried all day long.

When I collected him this afternoon, a Year 8 kid got into the car. Not uber-cool, not forlorn, just a Year 8 schoolboy. Apparently the day hadn’t gone as badly as he’d been expecting it to and the Year 7 boys were now the objects of the derision of the Year 10 and 11 boys. Year 8 and Year 9 boys seem to escape the worst of the bad treatment. The Year 8 schoolboy I bought home with me was hopeful that the rest of this year will go well and that he’ll be able to settle in and get some work done. He was wondering whether there was anything that he could do to help the Year 7 boys settle in quickly and not have such a rough ride in their first year at “big school” as he did.

Good to know, as a parent, that despite his uber-cool holiday demeanour and his quite strange taste in attire, my Year 8 schoolboy seems to have his heart very much in the right place.

about living by & breaking the rules

2009-08-29T08:04:00.010+01:00

There are a few rules in life that really should be adhered to. As far as I can tell, (in no particular order of priority and probably more observational than autobiographical) these are:

If you have big ears, save up to have them pinned back and whilst you are so doing, cover them up with your hair.

If you have a fat bottom, a bulging tummy and “generous” hips think very carefully before purchasing, let alone wearing, leggings. If you have a cleavage, you don’t necessarily always have to show it.

If you switch on the TV for background noise, without paying attention to what is actually being transmitted and you happen to hear a phrase such as “basically, there’s a large bag, filled with hot air and attached to a basket” – do not automatically assume that someone has been watching you do your shopping and is talking about you when, in fact, you may have heard an item about hot air balloons on The Weather Programme.

If you have something that you want to do, then do it because nobody else is going to do it for you.

If you have something that you don’t want to do, then try really hard not to do it because it will probably make you unhappy.

If you have something that you SHOULD do, then just get on with it. If you let someone else do it for you, chances are you won’t be happy with the way they’ve done it and you will have relinquished the right to say a single word about it.

If you have something that you want to say, think very carefully before you say it because someone might actually remember what you’ve said and hold it against you.

If you like someone, tell them that you like them. If you don’t like someone, don’t bother talking to them because you’ll probably continue to dislike them and then hurt their feelings, which is something that could be avoided by not talking to them in the first place.

Try really hard not to frighten people and try really hard not to let anyone frighten you. If you are frightened, hide behind the sofa until someone who doesn’t frighten you assures you that it’s safe to emerge from your hiding place.

If you hear the name Arsene Wenger, do not think “what a coincidence it is that he manages Arsenal” as you will waste 5 minutes of your life that you will not be able to retrieve in wondering whether the football club chose him to be its manager because of his name.

Do not live in the past because it has a habit of being a happier place than the present and will make you feel very worried and fearful about the future which could well get better but all your doubts might just make it feel worse.

If you feel like singing, sing - and ignore people who don’t like the way you sing or ask them to join in with you because having a good sing-song will make everyone feel better (except people who don’t like singing).

If you don’t know how to spell something look the word up in a dictionary before committing it to paper because someone WILL notice and come after you with a pointy, pointy finger and a naggy voice. If you haven’t got a dictionary to hand – use a different word.

If you haven’t had any sleep, don’t write a blog post because it will come out all wrong. If you do write a blog post when you haven’t had any sleep and it does come out all wrong, don’t hit the publish key. If you do hit the publish key, be brave and brace yourself for the very worst thing that could happen ... someone might not like what you’ve written.

If you have your own set of rules, break them sometimes – just for the sheer heck of it.

about Acronyms and Meaningless Hashtags

2009-08-23T16:25:00.004+01:00

Twitter’s the place for people who have leanings towards media, all things literary, technological, News and Current Affairs, right? I’ve come to look on it as a social media site that is somewhat more grown-up than Facebook ... more for “thinking” people – but these days, I’m confused.

Acronyms such as LOL, ROFL, ROLMAO and even the blasted “hehee” have been appearing within those precious 140 characters and I’m wondering why people are wasting their character allowance on using mindless abbreviations when, patently, most of them are capable of expressing themselves in far better ways.

I never did like Facebook very much. It seemed, to me, to be full of people who knew people who I’d only ever met once or twice – and some who I’d never met at all – wanting to be my friends and then having the utter temerity to wish me to view their holiday photos. Soon after joining Twitter, I closed my Facebook account as I was really only ever using it to play Scrabble with a friend who lives less than 2 miles away from me and I truly didn’t wish to be friends with people of whom I’d never even heard let alone met. I was also plagued by the “gifts” that these unknown “friends” kept sending to me ... “Here, LOL, have a model Beefeater to make your day” and “Hehee, don’t forget to send a gift back to me”. Go away. Leave me alone. They wouldn’t – so I closed my account and shuffled in a relieved but adult fashion back to Twitter where I could actually form relationships with people who are capable of expressing quite complex, interesting and often witty thoughts in a succinct manner and who didn’t Laugh Out Loud at everything and anything that anyone said.

But what’s happening now on Twitter? The LOLS, ROFLS and hehees are creeping in and the succinct expressions of intelligent thought are on the decline and, what’s worse, I’ve even started to receive Direct Messages from people who are sending me “cuddly duckies” and such like with requests for me to send Direct Messages containing cute teddy bears back to them. But at least – as yet – I’m not being asked to view the holiday photos of people whom I do not know (and probably do not want to know). I enjoy looking at the occasional, amusing or interesting Twitpic but thanks heavens – as yet – no holiday photos.

Something else has started to happen on Twitter that is beginning to get ever so slightly too far lodged up my nostrils for comfort and that is the advent of the #verylongandoftentotallymeaninglesshashtag. Oh – and the swearing. I’m no prude. In fact I can – and often do – swear like a trooper but I’m not going to waste my 140 characters at proving this dubious talent to anyone who might happen to be reading what I write. I’ve been known under very stressful circumstances to use the occasional asterisk if I want to make a point very rudely but it’s not something I do often as I believe I am more than capable of expressing displeasure using other words than the usual F***s, C***s and whathaveyous.

And all of these annoying little factors are being sent by people who I genuinely thought knew better than to do so.

They know who they are and, without wishing to be a killjoy, I wonder if I may politely ask them when they’re going to stop or – if they don’t want to stop, perhaps they could restrict these inane practices to Facebook where I think they more rightfully belong.

You see, I am not LOL-ing, ROFL-ing, ROFLMAO-ing or even heehee-ing and I suspect quite a number of other people aren’t either.

about Blood Brothers at the Bournemouth Pavilion

2009-08-19T01:19:00.018+01:00

I had a bit of a health scare yesterday. I was quite frightened but, fortunately, I have a very good NHS doctor who's monitoring me carefully and I'm hoping to feel much better soon.

I tweeted that I'd had a bit of a scare on Twitter and, as ever, was amazed and touched at the many kind, supportive tweets I received in response. I'm aware that Twitter has come in for a bit of "flak" of late but you won't hear any criticism about it from me today. I'm very fond of my virtual friends and find that the incisive (and sometimes quite wicked) wit I read on the site lifts me when I'm feeling down and heartens me when I feel in need of a bit of virtual support.

I'd booked tickets for OP, Josh and myself to see Willy Russell's "Blood Brothers" at the Bournemouth Pavilion last night. It will be OP's birthday at the end of this month and as he'd seen the show many years ago and it had made quite an impression on him, he was keen to see it again. Tickets to see the show seemed to be a very good birthday present for him ... usually he never wants "anything" but I knew he'd appreciate this.

In all honesty, I really didn't feel very well and didn't feel too much like going to the theatre - however, as I'd bought the tickets and both OP and Josh were looking forward to going, it would have been churlish of me not to have gone too. We set out early, parked easily and had a super meal in Wagamama prior to the show and were in our seats on time. We sat in the Circle and we had a very good view of the stage.

The show was good - a very acceptable "touring" company production ... not, in truth, up to West End standards, but apart from some of the diction not being too clear and the air conditioning in the Circle not coping too well with the humidity of the night - it was a moving version of a good musical. Lyn Paul (who used to be in The New Seekers) took the rôle of the Johnstone twins' mother and her voice was strong and clear throughout. I expect that many people are more familiar with Barbara Dickson's rendition of the show's main theme "Tell Me It's Not True" but Lyn certainly did justice to that song and others in the musical. She and Robbie Scotcher, who took the part of the narrator, carried the show and I was so glad I went. The cast received a well deserved hearty ovation and I wasn't alone in having tears in my eyes at the end.

So, after a not altogether happy or healthy day, when I wondered if the show should have been re-named "The Blood Pressure Brothers" especially for me - a little bit of culture has - as it often does - made me feel a whole lot better than I'd been feeling earlier. I was also lifted by the fact that OP had enjoyed his birthday present and that Josh, at the tender age of 12 years, understood the sociological connotations of the show and was - for one so young - also moved by it.

The production only runs until Friday of this week but, if you're in the environs of Bournemouth and can manage to obtain tickets, the show would certainly receive my recommendation!

About her Son's School and Education

2009-08-07T12:42:00.004+01:00

So, we’re in school holiday mode and whilst The Joshua is not 100% occupied, he’s certainly 100% happier than he usually is during term time. I’m not having to listen to the weekday morning ritual of “Oh, PLEASE, why can’t I be home-educated?” whilst taking him to school each day nor am I having to listen to the tearful reports of the very real upsets that he has suffered during school hours on collecting him each afternoon.

My kid is not wimp. He’s not violent and he “walks away” from trouble if he can. During his first year at his school he’s been bullied quite badly resulting in the actual suspension of about three children. He’s on his school’s Gifted and Talented Register for his artistic prowess. Heaven only knows how kids are treated if they’re NOT on the register. His school is letting him down wholesale.

I received his school report in June which was, at first glance, pleasingly “okay” – when I’d managed to decipher the hieroglyphics that actually comprise the report. Once I’d had a more detailed trawl through the subjects, I was considerably less happy ... not with Josh but with the school. For Literacy (or for us older people “English”) – there was no report at all due to “staff absence”. English is a core subject. Joshua is good at English - probably rather more due to the fact that his aged mother is a slave to the language than from anything he is learning at school.

I discovered at an over-crowded and completely disorganised Parents’ Evening – also in June – that Joshua’s English teacher was on Maternity leave and therefore hadn’t written any school reports for the pupils she had taught during the year. Has the gestation period of pregnancy decreased or increased since I had Joshua just over 12 years ago? I thought it was still 9 months. Am I to believe that his English teacher was taken completely by surprise by her pregnancy? Or were her time management skills severely in need of attention? She had MONTHS in which to write reports for the children she was teaching – but she didn’t.

It’s usual during the last week of term for children at Joshua’s school to take part in “Activities Week” – where a little slack is cut from the usual routine and they’re allowed to do the things that they like to do in most lessons. FOUR weeks before the end of term, Joshua happily announced that on three consecutive days in Maths lessons, he and his classmates had been allowed to watch “films”. I wondered if the said films were in any way mathematically orientated. No. The Maths Teaching Assistant (Joshua has NEVER actually had a Maths “teacher”) was on sick leave and there were no other teachers OR teaching assistants to step into the breach in her absence.

Joshua has not had the same teacher or teaching assistant for two consecutive lessons throughout his entire first year at his school for Music. Invariably he and his classmates don’t learn anything about music at all ... they sit and draw.

His school is wonderfully endowed with the most excellent of facilities – particularly for a child like Joshua whose main interest and talent is Art. It is completely lacking in adequate staffing – and discipline for either teaching staff OR children. The whole place is in chaos.

I don’t say this very often but I am at a complete loss for words.

About not being Menopausal AT ALL

2009-07-30T16:13:00.003+01:00

Hormonal? Who ME? Who said? What on EARTH are you talking about? I am NOT hormonal. I am behaving PERFECTLY normally. I am not IN THE SLIGHTEST irrational and I have NO IDEA what you’re talking about.

I’m glad I’ve got that bit out of the way – because those words form part of the many repetitions of my daily mantra whilst I’m behaving in a very hormonal, incredibly abnormal and almost maniacally irrational way. And if any woman of 45-55 something years repeats similar words to those in my first paragraph then I would like to stand up right here, right now and tell you that she is (a) lying and that she is (b) very, very frightened that the person who she knows she really is, is someone almost completely unknown to her and for a goodly part of the time, not even liked by her.

So why do I persist in repeating my mantra when I know – yes, I really do know, that I am behaving like a woman possessed for a good 23 hours out of each day? What would actually be so, SO terrible in saying “Oh, look – I’m behaving like a complete loon; you need to ignore me. I have no idea why I’m doing it and if I did have an idea then I’d truly try to stop it”. Oh – and there’s another word I don’t say ... the really hard one: “Sorry”.

Is it JUST me? Am I alone in my deep, dark secret that I have no idea who I am any more, even less idea why I do the things I do or say the things I say and I’m SO full of self-doubt that my ONLY defence is attack? Or is this the malaise of the majority of ladies of a matronly age? (Did I just WRITE that?)

A matronly age? Oh, heavens – is that how I think of myself? Surely not? Or maybe I do? Maybe I do identify with the “Grumpy Old Women”. I know I have a son who I think spends far too much time telling me to calm down. That’s not right, is it? And what are the things I get so grumpy about? Oh, you name it. I can be grumpy because it’s too sunny, too dull or too rainy. I can get grumpy about being on my own so much but that’s quite often surpassed at the grumpiness I feel because I don’t have enough time on my own. I can get quite grumpy at seeming – even to myself – to have a life of complete dichotomy. I don’t KNOW why I get grumpy and I get grumpy about that, too.

I’ve said it before – in my blog and probably on Twitter, too: “Only women bleed? I DON’T THINK SO”. It’s no secret that my marriage was not made in heaven but even I have to admit that I wouldn’t want to live with me! Not right now, anyway.

If you happen to come across me, please bear with me ... I’m not doing it on purpose!

about the New Blogger in her Family

2009-07-23T18:15:00.008+01:00

All I really wanted to do today was stay in bed. Ha! Not a snowball’s chance in hell.

I seem, from somewhere – I know not where – to have acquired Mark II of the dreaded lurgy and am staggering around, off-balance, with earache, backache and just for good measure a throbbing headache. I think I could just about cope with one of the symptoms but all three together are just about flooring me.

Anyway, the school holidays are upon us, Josh needs occupying and OP is busy for which, of course, I am very grateful but – as he’s been pretty busy for what seems like an eternity (for which, of course, I am even more grateful), I seem to have been doing the lone parent thing for an awfully long time of late.

So, at crack of sparrow’s fart, I arose and started to make inroads into the ever-increasing pile of admin in the chamber of doom otherwise known as “my office”. Readers of my blog will know that I’ve become somewhat phobic about actually venturing into the doom chamber, so chaos would be a welcome sight on entry. The reality is that the mess in there has gone way, way beyond chaos and I have to swallow several Valium before crossing its threshold.

The Joshua was having a “lie-in” after yet another far too late a night and I thought that I could make use of the silence in the house by getting ahead with some admin without being perpetually coerced into conversations that oftentimes I don’t even begin to understand! I managed about 17 minutes in there before my darling child arrived on the scene. I am talked at and if I’m not paying attention, I am nudged until I do.

Today, Joshua had decided was HIS day for following in his mother’s footsteps and he wanted to start his own blog. In all fairness, he has worked away at it all day long and I’ve barely heard a squeak out of him – apart from being asked to check a few spellings and to look at his punctuation – neither of which, I was pleased to find, needed too much attention or correction.

I managed to get all my invoicing done and my EmoKiddy (yes, he now has his own Twitter account [very heavily monitored by me and, for obvious reasons, he is not allowed to “follow” me!] and that is his Twitter name) has thought long and hard about content and has actually written a very passable critique of one of the works of his hero, Jhonen Vasquez. And I am but SO, SO proud of him. So my 21st century boy-child is venturing ever further into the world of cyber communication and is far better at it than I could ever hope to be. And OP, needless to say, feels just a little bit more “left out” of things than he did yesterday. I can live with that!

This is a shameless bit of familial promotion. You can find Josh’s artwork on http://joshjdtv.deviantart.com/ - do take the time to scroll back – even if I say so myself (and, of course, I would say so, wouldn’t I?) – there’s some very good stuff on there, if you hunt for it! You could, if you’re patient enough, follow him on Twitter – he’s @EmoKiddy and, if you’re in the mood for reading yet another blog, his is at http://joshology.wordpress.com/

So, does the Redman family have the web covered? I’m sure for the time being it does – and unless by some technological miracle, OP suddenly becomes computer literate, perhaps all this “will do” for the time being?

about the iHat Application and some Curious Cures

2009-07-06T10:46:00.007+01:00

I do SO love a barmy hat ... not to wear, you understand ... but at which to look and, often, I’m ashamed to admit, to rather cruelly snigger. The best time of year for really barmy hats is, of course, winter when I even look forward to going to the supermarket or to Winton to shop for the most mundane of items because I may spot someone wearing something on their head that will make me chuckle quite nastily for the rest of the day. My favourite type of barmy hat is of the brightly coloured variety, quite pointy – often with a bobble on the top and usually with strange string like contraptions which the wearer invariably doesn’t tie together but leaves hanging down on either side of the neck. However, there are no hard and fast rules and I’m quite happy to think snide thoughts about anything that makes the wearer appear as if they’ve been let out of an asylum as a special treat.

There are occasions in the summer when I see or hear about a head covering that will bring a smirk to my face and such has been the case very recently. A friend on Twitter, @Neets68, wrote that she had taken “the hat of badness” with her when she was fortunate enough to spend the weekend before last at the Glastonbury Festival. My virtual ears pricked up immediately and I wasn’t disappointed! Neets kindly posted a “Twitpic” of her hat and – if I’m honest, it was Stetson style and not too barmy at all, but the surreal conversations that ensued regarding its possible uses have now given it five star uber-barmy status. Neets had posted that she was listening to some music wearing her hat but that she really had some domestic chores to carry out and would therefore be removing it. The suggestion was made that the hat should remain on her head as it could be used whilst she was multi-tasking. I believe that she may have worn the hat for the whole day as it proved to have so many uses. And so was born the iHat with its many and varied quite ludicrous applications.

You can find out what they are by searching for #iHat on Twitter. I’m not entirely sure I should be advising you to do that as it may ensure you know (or perhaps confirm your existing belief) that not only do I love barmy hats but also that I’m actually quite barmy myself for being somewhat fixated with them.

Poor Neets managed to get herself quite sun-burnt at Glastonbury which not only had its mandatory share of rain but also some glorious sunshine too. She arrived home having enjoyed the delights of Bruce Springsteen, the TingTings and Tom Jones inter alia, very tired, caked in mud and in a great deal of pain from the effects of too much sun.

My past is very much “another country” and, in times gone by I’ve lived in some very hot climates indeed. I picked up a few useful tips on keeping cool (would that I could keep as cool emotionally as I’m able to physically!) and coping with such ills as sunburn. When I heard that Neets had burnt badly at Glastonbury, I contacted her and told her to cover her burnt and hurting skin in ... toothpaste! Naturally she thought that she was being advised by the founder member of the Yampy Brigade – but squirting toothpaste onto one’s hands, then mixing with cold water and smearing the mixture over burnt and blistered skin does, indeed, reduce soreness, redness and can prevent or ease blistering. She agreed to try my weird remedy ... and was relieved to discover that it worked!

I’d burnt very badly once many thousands of years ago when sailing on Long Island Sound. Fortunately, I was on board with a doctor who’d told me what to do (well ... actually he applied the magic potion for me – but that’s another story!) and although I’ve never allowed myself to get burnt as badly since then, I still use the formula if ever I need to.

As if being sunburnt, overtired and having some Stepford tasks to perform weren’t enough, Neets was also feeling too hot – as I suspect a lot of us were over the weekend which, judging by today’s weather, will no doubt have been the full extent of our summer.

I’d lived in Israel and South Africa during my years abroad and learnt that the very best way to stay cool was to take a shower with the water at the very hottest temperature one can bear – and then emerge to only pat oneself dry with a towel but allowing most of the water to evaporate by itself on one’s skin. It’s a method of staying very much cooler for considerably longer than by using the “instant fix” of a cold shower.

So, Neets tried that too ... and it worked! I don’t believe she thinks I’m quite as much of a nutter as first she thought! Well, at least not in the area of strange remedies, anyway!

I wonder if anyone else knows of any weird and wonderful ways of keeping cool or making hurty things better? I should imagine that we could save ourselves a fortune by using homespun cures!

about being A FAILURE

2009-07-03T09:04:00.006+01:00

A couple of months ago I wrote a piece entitled "The Shaving Tackle Box" which was inspired by a picture that had been posted on The Elephant Words burst culture website. I posted the article on my blog and was OVERWHELMED by the response it received. The lovely people who read my blog regularly and a lot of virtual Twitter friends sent many comments to me - both to the Blog and via Twitter - saying how moved they'd been by the article. One of the comments I received was from the friendly journos at The Bournemouth Echo who told me that I really should enter the competition that was being held to find a new columnist. The criteria for entry into the competition was that the article had to be between 450 and 600 words and one could write about "anything" - so I did.

The competition closed on 1st June and from Monday to Thursday this week, the Echo has published runners' up entries. I was not amongst the runners up. Today the Echo has posted the winning entry. I am not the winner. You can read the runners' up entries and the winning article here: Bournemouth Echo Columnists.

So I am a failure! But just in case you'd care to see what a failing article looks like, this is what I wrote:

SIX HUNDRED WORDS

What is different about this piece of writing from anything else I’ve ever written in previous years?

Nothing really, because prior to embarking upon anything I write, I deliberate and worry, fret, write, re-write and fret again. I count the words and have come to the conclusion from counting very many words that the length of article I am happiest with and write most easily is between 750 and 800 words and I find it very hard to edit down.

So there IS a difference. This piece of writing must be between 450 and 600 words because if it is longer perhaps the Bournemouth Echo won’t read it. Or, if they do read it, a large red pen may strike out all words that come after the 600th. And that would be dreadful because that might mean that my entry into the paper’s competition to find a new correspondent might be void or disqualified.

Now that would never do. How awful would it be for me to screw up the opportunity of perhaps winning a competition which would allow me to be who I actually am?

I have always been a writer – but have only recently dared to start thinking of myself as one – let alone calling myself one, but I have always been one. Even at a very young age, I was the kid whose Mum didn’t have to nag her to write thank you notes after birthdays and Christmas. I would write lengthy tomes describing my glee at having received a hand-knitted cardigan from my Grandma (she had no reason to know that it had been placed in an out of reach cupboard and would never be worn), or expressing my severe disappointment that my second cousin had not been able (thank heavens) to attend my birthday party but who had sent me a truly vile set of handkerchiefs with her card. Words just flowed from my pen onto the paper – sometimes I wouldn’t even know how they got there. So I have always been a writer.

And these days, what is it actually that I do that’s so very different? Nothing really. I’m still writing letters ... perhaps not to individuals and maybe not to say thank you for anything – but letters to a wider and unseen audience are what I send when I hit the “publish” key on my blog or the “reply” key on Twitter. And the pressing of those two buttons is a two-edged sword. It brings with it a huge sense of freedom that I can say exactly what I want to say (and with that a great sense of gratitude that I live in a country where I still can say what I want to say – because so many people in the world can’t). I also have a huge sense of trepidation because what I am saying is right out there – straight away – in the public domain for anyone to read – and for anyone to comment upon. And, oh – that is just SO frightening. But it’s what I do and who I am.

Now there is the opportunity – however slim – that a newspaper may read what I have to say and choose me to make my lifelong dream a reality. (Only a few more words in which to convince you that I AM your new correspondent). I need to tell you something memorable, don’t I? I not only believe that you would be making the right choice in selecting me, but please also consider that I am very hungry and would greatly appreciate having lunch with your Editor. Thank you. [600 words].

... about NOTHING AT ALL

2009-07-02T17:19:00.002+01:00

It’s been a while. I’ve really felt that I’ve had absolutely nothing of interest to say and was once given some very useful advice: “If you haven’t got anything to write about – DON’T WRITE”! But the itch has started ... it usually does ... and now I feel compelled to ignore that good advice and at least tap something out and at the moment, that “something” is about nothing at all!

My last blog was highly personal, difficult to write and painful for me to read. I received many heartening comments about it but have now deleted it – not because the subject matter no longer holds true ... it does ... but because there’s simply nothing to be achieved by re-reading something that hurts so much. And I don’t need there to be written evidence of what’s already in my head.

I’m in a much more positive frame of mind regarding this post – without any justifiable reason at all ... I’m just feeling happier!

Wimbledon, the season of Pimms and strawberries is upon us – it even looks possible that Murray could get to the final.

Old Peculiar’s away for nine whole days. He went off to Europe leaving me not only with some precious space and much needed room to breathe but also with copious instructions about when to put the sprinkler on in the garden, dead-heading certain plants and throwing a few slug pellets around the marigolds. Of course, having been certain that it would rain today, I’ve already let him down – AGAIN! I can live with that.

The Joshua doesn’t care or even notice whether I vacuum or not. I’m reading a couple of excellent books and the weather’s good. It’s too hot to do any ironing and anyway I’ve nearly finished yesterday's crossword and I've completed both Sudokus.

Josh and I are both too hot to eat anything substantial, so I don’t have to cook and we’re going to have sandwiches followed by a great deal of ice cream. What’s not to write about?

Is there anything else I should be telling you? No – not really. NOT TODAY!

ELEPHANT WORDS - TOE WORMS

2009-05-14T02:37:00.004+01:00

From the creative commons, for non-commercial use, posted by Ashelia

The above picture was posted on The Elephant Words website under the title "Mother and Child at Sunset" and inspired me to write the following:

He didn’t like it. Just like his mother before him, he didn’t like it one tiny little bit. In fact he woke up in the middle of the night, calling out, insistently:

“Mummy, Mummy – they’re in my bed. They’re wriggling and squirming.”

The mother got out of bed, yawned and in a resigned way, pulled her dressing gown on. She knew that she’d have a disturbed night, even before she’d gone to bed. It had been a gloriously sunny day, the day before, and her husband said that they should spend it at the beach – so the reaction from her boy was to be expected. A long, hot day at the beach and ever was it thus.

But it had been a good day. It had started early and ended late. They’d found a quiet spot on a beach that was really only ever visited by locals ... not like the main beaches which were swarmed upon by the hoarding masses of tourists displaying their bright white bodies with patches of lobster red sunburn in too little inappropriate clothing. This was a beach frequented by seaside dwelling people who knew about keeping covered up and who liberally rubbed SPF30 into their sensibly tanned skins. These were the people who although didn’t know one another, were at least familiar with each other as they came to that same beach year after year. It was a beach that had, she thought, a sense of community. Children who’d seen each other the year before made bee-lines for each other this year and resumed their sandcastle building where they’d left off. This was a beach where you could catch the eye of someone sitting not too far away and nod and point at one’s towels knowing that they would be watched over whilst one went to the loo or to buy an ice-cream or to swim in the sea.

They were keen on swimming – all three of them. The husband was a strong swimmer – the type of swimmer who could frighten other swimmers by diving into a pool, only to emerge after having spent two whole lengths under water. The mother could swim slowly but for quite a long time – it was nothing for her to swim 20 lengths and the boy had taken to the water from a very young age and was, now that he was growing up, quite a competent little swimmer. They all loved the pool; they all liked the beach but only the husband loved the sea.

The mother was determined that her boy would know how to stay safe in the water and had taken him for swimming lessons from when he was really very young. And they’d been to the beach from the time he was one year old. She used to leave it to her husband to wade, waist deep into the water while she watched his strong arms envelop the happily squealing boy as he’d carry him into the cold sea. And they’d come back out of the sea where she’d been waiting with two huge dry towels to wrap them up in and rub the salty water off them.

Yesterday, when the sun started to fade, the husband said, “Why don’t you both get the sand off your feet at the water’s edge and I’ll get everything together ready for us to go”.

And they did - but her insides churned and she had to get a grip on herself or she’d have happily run back to their car. She didn’t show any signs to her boy of how she felt. And before much more could be thought, they were at the water’s edge and the assault on her feet began. The tide came in and as the under swell caught her feet, they were there – wriggling and squirming and making her feel that the earth was moving away from her and leaving her behind. And she felt faint but she didn’t let it show nor did she look at the grimacing boy standing next to her.

She was busy remembering her futile efforts at consoling a much younger crying boy whose little feet had also been at the water’s edge and whom she had held whilst he stood in the wobbly way that belongs to toddlers when they stand.

She knew that although she’d hidden her revulsion so well, her boy had discovered his very own.

So when her sleep was disturbed, she wasn’t altogether surprised. She’d gone past the age when she used to dream of the toe worms but she remembered the dream very well indeed. And even if she’d have forgotten it, it would be seasonally bought back to her, when her now much more grown-up boy cried out on summer nights after long days - like yesterday - at the beach,

“Mummy, Mummy, they’re here”.

Elephant Words - The Shaving Tackle Box

2009-05-10T19:54:00.012+01:00

By Matthew Hartwell, Attribution: Non-commercial. No derivative works 3.0 unported

(The above image was uploaded to the Elephant Words site on Sunday 3rd May 2009)

Elephant Words is a burst-culture website, featuring daily fiction. Each Sunday, an image is posted. Over the following week, each of six authors takes their turn to write something inspired by that image. Visitors to the website are also encouraged to comment on the pictures and also, if they're inspired to write something to contribute. I saw the above picture during the week and was inspired to write the following so, with the encouragement and advice of Nick Papaconstantinou - to whom I'm extremely grateful, here it is!

THE SHAVING TACKLE BOX

Scroll back 46 years. It is a Sunday morning in 1963; I am 7 years old and I have a job! It is my job to balance on the side of the bath with my legs dangling, my feet almost touching the floor – but not quite, and unpack my father’s shaving tackle from its brown leather box. I am very careful because I know that razor blades can be very sharp indeed. First I hand the shaving brush to my Dad, then the razor which already has the blade in it – because I am not allowed to touch the blades. Then I pass him the styptic pencil. And my job – until he has finished shaving – is over.

I am now free to stand by the bathroom sink and watch him very carefully whilst he shaves which he does meticulously. I like watching him hold the skin taut on his face. It makes me giggle when he shaves underneath his nose and I giggle even more when he puts the thickly lathered shaving brush on the end of his nose so that he ends up with a white blob of foam where his nose should have been.

When the shaving ritual is completed, I resume my position on the edge of the bath and I am handed the damp shaving brush, the razor (which I am again VERY careful with) and finally the styptic pencil. I place everything neatly back in the brown leather box and press stud it closed again.

Now I am free again to watch my father rinse his face with very hot water and then very cold water. He pats his face dry and then splashes some aftershave on. And that aftershave is the very best smell in the whole world.

And if I put my mind to it, 46 years later – I can still smell it and it is STILL the very best smell in the whole world. It’s the smell of safety and security and has the faint whiff about it that no matter what, my Dad will make sure that everything in my world is all right.

Scroll forward to the new Millennium. It is January 2000 and my mother has just died. My father has come to stay with me, my husband and our then 2½ year old little boy.

My father doesn’t feel like smiling very much but it is a Sunday morning and he is in our bathroom, shaving. He has a helper. A little boy who is given a job to do. The little boy balances on the side of the bath with his legs dangling. A tattered, well-used brown leather box is placed on the closed toilet seat. The little boy is shown how to open the box and then asked by his Grandpa to first pass the shaving brush, then the razor - which he has to hold very carefully - because the blade is VERY sharp indeed, and finally the styptic pencil. The little boy then moves to the side of the bathroom sink and watches as his Grandpa holds the skin on his face very taut and moves the razor over the skin to get rid of all the prickly bits. I can hear giggling coming from the bathroom and go to investigate. A little boy is laughing because his Grandpa has just put his shaving brush on the end of his nose and he now has a blob of thick white foam where his nose should have been.

Shaving over and the little boy must complete his task. He is handed the shaving brush, the razor which he is again very careful with because he’s been told that the blade is VERY sharp indeed, and finally the styptic pencil. He’s shown where to place everything within the old leather box and enjoys pressing the stud to close it. And this will be his Sunday morning job while Grandpa is staying with us. It makes him smile. He hugs his Grandpa and his Grandpa smiles too.

Now we are back in the present. I look at a picture and with a sharp intake of breath I experience something akin to a physical pain. I see a brown leather box, a shaving brush and a razor and I am once again 7 years old and I can smell my father’s aftershave. I show the picture to my 11 year old, his head nods slightly and he says “Grandpa’s shaving box”. My 88 year old father comes round for dinner and we show him the picture. He looks at it and says to me “Can you remember when mine looked like that”?

I can.

I look at my father. I look at my son. And we all smile.

BOUNCING TOWARDS BIRTHDAYS

2009-05-08T05:13:00.014+01:00

It has arrived and it is in use. It really shouldn’t have been bought until next month but it seemed a shame not to buy it now because whilst the weather is okay at the moment, “Summer’s lease hath all too short a date” and there’s no guarantee that we will have a glut of dry, sun-filled days over the next few months.

We are talking about presents:

Every year The Joshua makes two lists. The first list is started on Boxing Day which carries him through the not quite six month period to his birthday. The second list begins on the day after his birthday and takes him through the just over six month period to Christmas. In theory, he is meant to add and subtract from the lists according to whether the items he places on it decrease in popularity. If they do, the items are removed. That’s the theory. In practice, Josh never goes off an item and the lists become longer and longer each year.

About four weeks before Christmas and about four weeks before his birthday, negotiations begin. Joshua, DH and I sit down and go through the meticulously prepared list item by item. Discussions are usually conducted without argument and, to date, we haven’t had to contact ACAS to help us reach agreement. DH and I are somewhat wary of the notebook that Joshua brings with to the negotiations because this comprises The Very Frightening List that we are sure he will present us with when he’s about 18 and that is when we will discover the going rate for the sale of parental souls.

There are, as you will have read in the first paragraph, items on this year’s Birthday List that have been purchased in advance of Joshua’s 12th birthday. He has been using a Wacom Pad at school which allows him to draw straight to computer. He is on the Gifted and Talented register at his school and attends a special Arts diploma class after school each week with other boys two or three years his senior – so he really is a talented kid and if he really does need and will use something that has to do with his art and drawing, we cut a bit of slack and buy it for him. He has wanted a Wacom pad for quite some time and since its purchase he has rarely been away from it whilst he’s at home.

Other items on this year’s list include an X Box 360 along with several games or programmes for it, some boxed DVD sets of his favourite programmes, various books that he want to read, a long leather coat so that he can (he assures me) just “look” like a Goth and he would like to have his hair dyed red during the Summer holidays. His ideal colour would be similar to Jane Goldman’s and that item meets with a maternal “We shall see”!

I have a fairly bad habit of encouraging Josh to write items on his list because I want to play with them. This year, I have been gently suggesting that he may like a silent drum kit because I want to play the drums. Josh has been adamant about not wanting one and I am forever destined to drum my fingers on most hard surfaces or, if I’m lucky and we eat Chinese, I occasionally get to syncopate with chopsticks.

On the whole, Josh isn’t a particularly sporty kid so DH and I were very pleased when the item that I mentioned at the beginning of this blog appeared on the list.

It is, of course, a trampoline. I agreed to its early purchase because I knew that Josh would use it right throughout the Summer and I’m always glad to see him enjoying outdoor activities as well as his many indoor hobbies.

Nobly, I also thought it would be a great opportunity for me to get a little exercise, too. I used to be quite good at trampolining when I was at school, so when it arrived, for the first time in 37 years, I had a go and was much chuffed that I could still remember how to bounce and not too many bits of me wobbled too much! Ignobly, I agreed to the purchase of the trampoline because it will give me a marvellous opportunity to spasmodically take a look at our neighbours’ gardens!

Joshua, having such expensive tastes, will prevent me from ever being able to say that I’m “too rich” but since the advent of the trampoline I may at least bounce my way towards being “too thin”!

About Counselling

2009-05-03T13:41:00.007+01:00

Last week was an easy week for me blog-wise. I handed my blog over to my guest, Mennard, who wrote most honestly about his marriage in “Indoor Fireworks” and I introduced his blog with my feelings about counselling. I discover this week, that I haven’t actually got everything I want to say about counselling out of my system – so, with a bit of a pre-amble about reaction to last week’s guest blog, I intend to ramble on about it for a while longer. And when I’ve rambled on, I shall be able to amend my profile on my blog – because I won’t have “recently” given up learning about counselling – it will have a been a while ago and I have very much moved on!

I was quite amazed by the first comment reacting to last week’s blog. The person who left the comment was apparently “astonished” and “horrified” and just for good measure actually came across as a bit “Disgusted, Tunbridge Wells”! My amazement was quite strictly down to the fact that a double-standard was occurring and I am perhaps naive enough to believe in this day and age, we should really be past all that.

The commenter was “appalled” that my guest was so upfront and honest about his wife’s tendency to physically and verbally abuse him. Like it doesn’t ever happen? Like, in truth, “only women bleed”? Not true. Fact. Many, many men are abused by their wives and I suspect many of them are too embarrassed to say much about it. But does that mean it doesn’t happen? Of course not. The person who commented had only a few weeks previously written a fairly hefty diatribe about her ex-husband in her own blog but criticised Mennard (who uses a nom de plume when blogging) for placing his wife in the public domain. It was therefore “okay” for her to say the most loveless things about her ex-husband (without his express permission, I should imagine) but NOT okay for Mennard to write honestly about his domestic situation maintaining an acceptance of and love for his wife throughout.

My blog attracts a very slim (but hugely appreciated!) readership. Mennard’s blog has not been splashed across the front page of The Sun. I do so love to keep things in proportion!

So, why am I so anti-counselling? I feel that throughout life things happen to us – nobody leads a completely carefree existence. Nobody. We have choices about how we deal with the “ess-aitch-one-tee” that is inevitably thrown at us. We can keep our own counsel; we can talk to our friends; we can talk to a stranger – ultimately we still have to continue, don’t we? For the most part, probably as I’m only child and I didn’t get married until I was 38 years old, I’m fairly used to keeping my own counsel – although, of course, I chat to friends about my life and in so doing discuss problems I’m encountering. Would talking to a stranger help me? I don’t think so!

I married into a family of counsellors ... probing, nosey, controlling, egotistical counsellors. If I moved at less than 30 miles an hour my sainted mother-in-law would stop me and advise me – whether I wished to be advised or not. She died a few years ago now but her probing and controlling tentacles do sometimes appear to reach beyond the grave!

Not all that long ago, DH decided that as we’d reached an impasse regarding a financial matter, we should go to counselling. We spent a fortune on reaching no solution whatsoever. DH, who had wanted to attend the counselling sessions, got nothing from them at all. I, on the other hand, seemed to “appeal” to the counsellor who armed me with leaflets, ‘phone numbers and advice to become a counsellor myself. I work from home, I own my own business and I am privileged in my time being my own – so I thought, why not?

I enrolled on an Introductory Course and from the outset was quite bemused that most people who were on it were either card carrying heroin addicts or people who were “earning” their job seekers’ allowances. None of them - apart from me (just call me Methuselah!) were anywhere near the age of 40. I didn’t see much evidence of their own life management skills coming to the fore in what appeared to me, to be facile role playing games using concepts so simple that I struggled with boredom.

The tutor (a suppressed thespian if ever there was one) told us over and over again about how a counsellor should paraphrase and repeat back to the person they are counselling what has just been said and how to ask an open-ended question. I thought I might be going mad. Why were my fellow attendees finding it so hard to do what I do as second nature? If I want someone to tell me about themselves, of course I ask open-ended questions. But if they don’t want to tell me about themselves, I’m not presumptuous enough to pursue them relentlessly about it until they do. It’s – after all – their business and not mine. I got out before I started to criticise the damaged people whose lives were imperfect but who believed that they could help others with damaged, imperfect lives. I expect they’ll gain their counselling qualifications and I hope they can help other people because I can’t – not in that way, at any rate.

I only truly have the right to manage my own life – not someone else’s. I’m a Mum and - of course – I have a duty of love and care to be responsible for my son until he’s old enough to be responsible for himself. Do I do that in a controlling way or do we discuss the best ways to go about things? I’m a forceful personality – I could oh, SO easily run his life for him – but would that be good for him? No. We discuss. Sometimes we argue. But we reach agreement on ways ahead that are right for us both and more importantly, he’s learning how to make decisions for himself.

I am not the perfect wife (I’m a sulker, an ingrate and on occasion, a plate-thrower). I’m not the perfect mother either but my little family unit muddles through. We don’t hold back on how we feel – be those feelings good or bad. We’re open with each other as much as we possibly can be. Would family counselling benefit us? I don’t think so.

If I have something on my mind, I write about it – and if it’s still on my mind, I write some more about it. Not everyone can or indeed wants to write to express themselves. There are times when I don’t. I haven’t come across a problem yet that can’t be solved by me or by me in conjunction with those closest to me. And there’s always a stomp across the Common with my dogs to allow me to let off steam – which is something I quite often have to do. The dogs don’t mind however much I rant!

Counselling – to either dole it out to someone else – or to be on the receiving end of it – is categorically NOT FOR ME.

(You may like to read a professional's views about Counselling ... Jackie Walker is the Divorce Coach at UK Divorce - she's a solicitor who speaks to her clients in plain English!)

A Long Night's Journey into Day

2009-04-23T03:29:00.012+01:00

Did you sleep well last night? Yes? Good! Did you sleep well the night before that, too? Yes? Even better!

I quite simply can’t remember the last time I had a “decent” night’s sleep – and my idea of the length of a “decent night” may well be somewhat shorter than yours. I would be just SO happy to sleep for 4 or 5 hours each night but, for the past month or so, I’ve felt lucky if I’ve dozed off for about 3 hours and more often than not, I’ve managed barely 2 hours at most. I suffer from insomnia.

I’ve always been a “night owl” and, after 15 years of marriage, DH is now getting used to passing me on the stairs during the wee, small hours. His work often involves having to leave the house extremely early in the morning and he really does need a full 8 hours if he’s to function sensibly. If I go up at a “reasonable” hour, I can’t read in bed as light disturbs him and I end up tossing and turning which also isn’t conducive to his sleep patterns. So, I have a habit of just staying up until he’s about ready to rise.

“The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world”

Leonard Cohen

I can’t say I really feel “superior” about being so wakeful – however creative I may be during the night, I’m no match for Leonard Cohen but I don’t actually mind being awake at night ... and never have done. I like the peace and the quiet. It’s the only part of the day that I own! The telephone doesn’t ring, I don’t receive text messages that need urgent attention, DH doesn’t disturb me by giving me a running commentary on a TV programme that we’re both watching and The Joshua isn’t chuntering at me.

The hours of darkness are mine and I’m usually quite productive during them ... I read, do a crossword, write, listen to music, occasionally watch TV if there happens to be something worthwhile seeing on – but I also like the opportunity to sleep in the following day in order to catch up. DH, if he’s here is actually pretty accommodating in this regard and will often just “leave me be” until I happen to wake up – but most of the time I have no option but to get up (if I’ve actually made it to bed in the first place) and join in with “normal” people during “their” hours. And that’s hard!

This week, with DH once again in Europe, I felt as if I simply had to take some action and went to see my GP who was most sympathetic and prescribed a course of Temazepam for me. I’m not a great fan of sleeping tablets, but last night I did take the suggested dose. I suppose they may be working because I managed just over 3 hours.

A friend had told me that the world would seem a better place if I had some sleep. I have to say it still seemed pretty awful when I switched on the 7.00am News this morning ... and I felt like taking the tablets back to the chemist and demanding a refund of the prescription fee! Tonight, I’ve again taken the recommended dosage and I’m at last starting to feel that bed might just be the right place for me!

So, if you happen to pass a pale person with eyes that resemble “p**s holes in the snow” and who is acting in a slightly detached fashion – not really able to concentrate and not enormously communicative it could be me ... suffering from either insomnia or a Temazepam hangover. I’ll be the one who is letting just about everything “get” to her and who is seemingly incapable of making a rational decision about anything at all! I’m not unfriendly when I’m like this – but I’m not all that easy to cope with either! Perhaps best to leave it until mid/late afternoon to tell me anything that I need to remember – as that’s when I start to rally from the confused misty haze of the previous night’s wakefulness. I get “second wind” at about 10.30pm and that’s when I feel most “on the ball”.

Anyway, it’s coming up to 1.30am and – yawn – I’m closing down now and feeling quite hopeful of about 5 hours “uninterrupted” tonight. I hope you’ll have had a “decent” night, too!

“O sleep, O gentle sleep, nature’s soft nurse, how have I frightened thee, that thou no more wilt weigh my eye-lids down and steep my senses in forgetfulness?”

Henry IV – Part 1: William Shakespeare

On Blogging ...

2009-04-13T05:46:00.000+01:00

There seems to have been a great deal of agonising and soul searching about blogging on Twitter in the past week or so.

I’ve noticed Twitter friends who feel that they want to start writing a blog but who are having crises of confidence. I’ve been writing every few days or at least once in every two weeks and I can’t give these friends any assurance that once they start writing their confidence will magically return. Mine certainly hasn’t and I’d hazard a guess that writers far more seasoned at their craft than I am, also agonise and worry about what they’re going to tell their unseen public in their next instalment.

My blog niggles at me. I’ve always been an observant person and particularly so when around my co-humans. I started making notes on what I observe within only a very few weeks of starting my blog. I know it seems to be a very writer-ish thing to do and I have to agree that my scribblings are a help but it still slightly goes against the grain and I don’t feel really comfortable about doing it. I’m not sure why but making notes seems to be so intrusive. I’m writing about what I’ve seen a person do or heard them say – or perhaps only a brief description of an expression on their face and what I’ve noted may or may not reach the “published” blog page – but I’m doing it all without their express permission. And that seems so wrong – but I keep on doing it.

Some of the very funniest tweets on Twitter are by @stevyncolgan whose observations about his fellow rail passengers on his way into work are a sheer side-splitting joy to read. His blog is The Unbearable Oddness of Stevyn. His descriptions are just the tiniest bit cruel which makes them even more amusing. Is that the same sort of observation I make but - as yet - don't publish? Am I alone in sparing a thought to those whom I observe?

Some of the friends who agonised have actually taken the plunge. They were so worried prior to their first posts and they really need not have been so ... each and every one I’ve read has been both interesting and well-written.

I wonder if the fear of putting our thoughts, opinions and allowing people to glimpse into our way of thinking into the public domain are the elements that are so frightening? Even if I write about “things” rather than “people”, those are still my thoughts that I’m expressing for public consumption. They are a little bit of “me” and I find that scary. Even scarier than submitting articles to magazines or tinkering away at the book I’ve been trying to write for the past several months. Why scarier? Because as soon as a finger hits that “Publish” key, a bit of “me” is out there and open to comment – immediately. And yet I welcome that comment. For the most part it’s been encouraging and that which hasn’t been so positive has been useful and I’ve attempted to learn from it.

I still don’t question my motives too much about why I’m writing. I write because I write - because that’s all I’ve ever really wanted to do. And I more than likely hit the “publish” key because I may just be a bit egotistical. Although I wouldn’t say it was solely my ego that makes me want to be "read". That’s just the easiest reason to express.

I subscribe to and read quite a few well-established blogs and I find that I’m learning “stuff” at the same time as being entertained. I’m learning about space which I was never really even interested in (too much of a “boy thang” for me) but the blogger is @nick_space who is Professor of Experimental Physics – Space Research and who is a wonderful, witty and informal teacher. His blogs, Spaced Out (Again) are gripping – and not always just about space, either! A self-deprecating barrister, @Mennard, describes, so beautifully, afternoons in Court and embarrassing dinner parties with neighbour’s brazen wives. His blog, The Story of Mennard, is chockful of descriptive writing so gentle ... and so very wicked. @sambrook tweeted recently words to the effect that blogging doesn’t pay the mortgage. No, it doesn’t – but – in his case - it should because his blog, Sacred Facts, mainly about News and the Media, comprises some of the most well-crafted writing I’ve come across and he’s good at spelling and grammar too! I’ve recently started to read Victoria Coren’s blog – so naturally written ... well, not only does she write for The Observer, she’s also the daughter of the late, lamented Alan Coren. She can write!

Reading some of the more well-established blogs is almost like being a part of a masterclass. Almost ... it IS a good feeling but it still doesn’t take away the fear that this novice blogger goes through ... nearly all the time – because as soon as the “Publish” key is pressed on a completed blog, my thoughts turn to the next.

And I shall keep on writing and keep on pressing that key ... basking in the kind comments and hopefully learning from others.

Would I encourage anyone else who’s thinking of writing a blog to go ahead? Of course I would. Everyone’s got SOMETHING to say – and what you have to say might just be of interest to someone else.

And, anyway, why should I suffer alone?

Two Lapdogs, A Lost Face & No Strings At All

2009-04-11T09:22:00.000+01:00

This week I’ve done something that I’ve been meaning to do for quite some time: I took my ancient lapdog into the local computer guru to see if it could be enabled for wireless use.

The computer in my office has become a bone of contention between The Joshua and me and it’s literally heaving with all his bookmarks, all my bookmarks, a mass of saved general tosh and all the usual accumulated things that sit on a computer. Its primary use is, of course, for work but - if Josh had his way - it would be perpetually logged into Club Habbo or some such site or used to upload his animations and cartoons to You Tube. I, of course, frequent Twitter and really the poor computer is overloaded.

The good news was that the old lapdog could indeed be “fixed”. The bad news was that by the time I’d been told it could be repaired, I’d already spotted a shinier, smaller and lighter brand spanking new puppy that seemed to need a new home. After a few rapid calculations I worked out that I could have that, Josh could have the old lapdog (he doesn’t mind too much that its portability really requires a wheelbarrow or forklift) and the computer in “My Office” could revert to being used just for work.

I ordered a Home Hub from BT to go “wireless” and when it arrived was pleasantly surprised to see the Quick Start guide was written in plain English. I have a dread of technology – so after bidding friends on Twitter a fond farewell in case I should get lost forever in cyberspace, with trembling hands I separated the computer from its trusty modem. I got onto the floor behind my desk and with much scrunching of eyes and praying to a god whose existence I’m cynical about when upright, I connected the hub to the computer – and, to my utter astonishment, it was done! The next step was to get wireless onto my new shiny puppy and this, too, was accomplished without any problems.

By this time my confidence was at “cock sure” level. What fun it would be to upload a new picture for my Twitter avatar. I deleted the old one. Big mistake. However hard I tried to upload the new one, all that happened was a message from Twitter that it was “too big”. I knew it had to be “under 700k” – but, what’s a “k”? How many “k”s are there to a bag of sugar? I certainly didn’t know how to reduce them.

In the end, I resorted to enlisting the help of The High Priestess of All Things Technical (and Shoes), @belle_lulu, who came to my rescue when I emailed the photo to her. She managed to disappear some “k”s and once again I had a face. When she’s not helping her technologically challenged friends, Belle Lulu finds time to write a slightly bizarre but very witty blog – Lulu’s Lala Life. Do take a look – you may need a glossary for some of the less familiar words that you’re likely to read but I guarantee that your funny bone will be tickled and that you’ll be left wanting more!

So, now I happily wander from room to room rarely missing a beat on Twitter – connected but ... er ... wireless, and with a new avatar. Josh is happily ensconced on “his lapdog” and the computer is now, as it should be, just for work.

The house looks as if it may be PC World’s newest franchise and DH is either feeling rather left out of the 21st century or perhaps he’s enjoying a rare lack of interruption from his wife and son. Josh and I can cope with that ... we have our heads stuck happily inside our laptops.

The Menopausal Guide to Office Management

2009-04-07T01:35:00.001+01:00

My office. The clue is right up there in front of the noun. MY. Office. It is mine. It's the one place I sometimes feel how I used to feel when I was a grown up and went out to work. It's the one place that I can come and tap away to my heart's content and, if I'm lucky I'm left alone to do just that. Because it is my office. It is sacrosanct and it is MINE.

Except nobody else seems to understand that. And instead of "leaving me be" in my own rather restricted space, DH & The Joshua seem to use my office (MY office) as a general repository for anything and everything that they don't quite know what to do with. The assumption is that I will know what to do, so little heaps of menacing detritus are left for my urgent attention:

A half-completed glove puppet. The sewing basket placed strategically by the half-completed glove puppet in the hope that the nice Mummy will complete it in time to be handed in at the start of next term. Town guides from various European cities. Hotel brochures from various European cities. Receipts for coffees or food. At least 17 car 'phone chargers - which 'phone they belong to long since forgotten. Any cables that anyone comes across end up in a pile on my office floor. You name it - all inanimate inhuman life is here.

Along with all the rather more organised files that I keep to do with work. (I don't mind those ... I put them there and I use them).

And on Sunday afternoon, I'd had enough.

I'm not entirely sure what came over me. One minute I was sitting down politely drinking a cup of tea that DH had made for me and the next I was wailing like a banshee, trying to find something that had been lost under a sea of other people's nonsense - in MY office.

Piles of papers, booklets, leaflets, brochures - armfuls of them were hurled into the dining room. Anything whose ownership was blatant was rapidly repatriated to the person who'd left it there. No delicate little throws either. Great raging lobs of paperwork flying through the air. With an accompanying soundtrack: "I give you a folder to put bl**dy receipts in". "No, I take that back - I give you two folders to put receipts in". "Yes, darling, I'm thrilled that you keep getting positive praise forms at school but you're meant to keep them in your school folder, in your rucksack which SHOULD BE IN YOUR BEDROOM". And on. And on.

If the owners of the accumulated oddments attempted to move out of the line of fire, I developed a nice line in the running and shouting overarm. They didn't escape.

And then it was over. I could see my office floor again, I could see cabinet tops and a desk that I hadn't seen in months and I was calm.

And everyone has gone back to remembering that this is MY office. Just for a little while.

And The Joshua told DH that he thought it would be very nice for Mummy to go for four days to one of those places where they put mud on your face.

And I would feel guilty. I probably should feel guilty. But, oh - it's just so good to be in MY office again.

Slow Speedboats and Mediocre Lunches

2009-04-05T22:15:00.000+01:00

The weather was glorious today and it really did seem a pity not to get out and "do something". I excused myself from the man and son discussions about exactly what it was we were going to be doing. I've been involved with such discussions before and I don't really contribute anything useful other than the occasional "Well, I'm not doing THAT", "Over my dead body" or - in extreme circumstances - "If you think I'm going to do that, I'll divorce you". I think I react that way as really all I want to do on a Sunday is be single again, buy a broadsheet and a tabloid and compare the news in both, eat something somewhere very quiet and drink copious amounts of very good wine - oh, in interesting company ... that would be important too!

So, it just seemed sensible for me to stay well away from the decision making process and shut up. I contented myself that whatever ghastly activity The Joshua and DH came up with, it couldn't be so awful that it wouldn't end in a lunch that I wouldn't have to cook.

Speedboating was their preferred method of Mummy torture this week. I was ready to go but several more circuits of the "what should we take" cycle had to be gone through before anyone else was. In the end, "what should we take" comprised bread for the ducks and swans at Christchurch Quay along with a camera to take pictures of said ducks and swans eating said bread.

And off we went, Josh & DH building themselves into an entirely unnecessary frenzy of excitement at the idea of half an hour on the river. I hadn't taken much notice of boats at Christchurch Quay on previous occasions but, inspite of Josh's insistence to the contrary, I was pretty sure I'd never seen any speedboats there. It's quite a narrow, busy little stretch of river and even if there were speedboats, they'd have to go very slowly. I won. There were no speedboats. There wasn't a prize for winning this competition of my own making. If there had have been I'd have opted to have gone home again but - no - we were there and come hell or high water, we were going to go on a boat. And so we did.

I don't ever purport to be an expert in parenting skills and wouldn't dream of saying that I am anything other than a haphazard, slightly crummy mummy but I will offer one piece of advice. NEVER let an 11 year old take the wheel of any boat be it a speedboat, a motor boat or even a plastic one in the bath. It's a mistake. A huge mistake. And, if you happen to ignore this heartfelt warning, then salvage something by NEVER letting a DH aged old enough to know better sit next to the 11 year old boy.

Josh didn't quite grasp that a boat takes longer to react than a car and therefore one must "steer it gently". We were swinging from side to side of the river narrowly avoiding other motorboats, some very expensive looking boats, jetties, buoys, bridge uprights. It was a very long half hour in the company of two people who had suddenly become waterborne maniacs. I didn't bother to remonstrate with them - they wouldn't have heard me over their own cackling enjoyment. I sunk further into the boat, turned my collar up and put my dark glasses on. I don't ever want to go to Christchurch again and, if I do, I don't want anyone to know that it was me on the river.

Disembarkation was the best bit of the whole trip and at least, I thought, I have lunch to look forward to - and I do so love a lunch that I don't have to cook. Although, by that time, even that was losing it's appeal.

I tried to look as enthusiastic as possible on the way into the restaurant but to be honest, I'd gone off the whole idea of food. The menu is a good one, the atmosphere pleasant, the staff helpful but the service long-winded. And Josh who'd been up at crack of sparrow's fart, walked the dogs with DH and spent a goodly length of time in the fresh air, was SO HUNGRY. We ordered, we had our drinks (I've never downed a glass of wine so fast in my life), we waited. And we waited and for good measure we waited even longer still. Two glasses of wine weren't producing the desired chilled out effect that I'd hoped they would. Eventually we were served. It was "okay" but expensive and really ... not worth the wait.

I gather Gary Rhodes has just opened up a restaurant in a hotel alongside Christchurch Quay - and I'd like to make it abundantly clear that I wish we'd have eaten there instead! (I'd also like to make it clear that I like Manola Blahnik shoes and would prefer to live in a mews cottage in either Bayswater or South Kensington rather than Catatonia by the Sea ... this kind of statement seems to produce interesting follows on Twitter but I've yet to receive any free gifts. Thought it might be worth a try here. Nothing ventured nothing gained).

Back at home after the adventure, what else would one do other than just relax? One would, of course - completely irrationally - decide to clear out one's office ... but that's a story for another day!

School Report

2009-04-01T19:09:00.000+01:00

I am sitting here trying to make sense of The Joshua's Spring Term Interim School Report which appears to have been written in hieroglyphics. From the coded numbers and letters I am going to presume that everything is okay because I am too stupid to work out if everything isn't okay.

I do wonder though ... what if everything is very, very wrong? Josh has a remarkably mature vocabulary for his age and his preferred reading can be quite alarming. I suspect he's influenced by the older brothers of various school friends. Is it entirely normal for an 11 year old to request a copy of "Jonny The Homicidal Maniac" for his birthday? (It's a comic book written and very cleverly illustrated by Jhonen Vasquez). It also won't be purchased for his birthday this year. Or next. And possibly not the one after either. Jhonen Vasquez is actually on Twitter and Joshua is desperate to be in touch with him but even the Amazon blurb informs me that Jonny is for "mature readership". Life was so much more simple a few years ago when the choices were more limited. And what do I know? I was bought up on "Millie Mollie Mandy" and it probably shows.

When I collected him from school this afternoon, Josh went into hyper-babble. He was beside himself with glee at having "got a bully back". Bad child was apparently treated to a super-Wedgie courtesy of my son. He was most chuffed with himself and apparently peace has broken out between them. I wasn't sure whether to congratulate or berate - I was just heaving huge sighs of relief that I actually knew what he was talking about. A few month's ago Wedgies for me was a nightclub in London.

When we arrived home, he went to feed Ethel and Valerie the wonder gerbils. It didn't take long for Josh, still in motormouth mode, to tell me that Ethel is depressed or pregnant or possibly both.

Do I need therapy? Does Josh need therapy? Or should I just call a Vet?

Spring Fever

2009-03-31T12:22:00.000+01:00

It happens every year - I don't know how, but it does. The clocks change, the evenings become lighter and after seemingly endless months of feeling as if I've been shrouded in an opaque black blanket, I start to feel ever so slightly human again.

Autumn & Winter 2008 were as I'd expected them to be, I experience a feeling of disappearing and by the time the year has turned to that awkward bit of time before Spring occurs, I disappeared into a very dark place indeed. The awkward bit this year was far, far worse than I'd ever been through before. I could see nothing but black and I could find no way out. This time, had it not have been for The Joshua (who needs a Mum who can at least give some semblance of haphazard parenting skills), it would have taken very little ... oh, really SO very little, for me to have become completely agoraphobic. Thank heavens, Josh needs taking to and collecting from school, that he needs to be fed and clothed, that he needs to get to see his friends and that he has to have someone to talk to when he's at home (or, perhaps, more accurately - someone to talk at ... but as he does ask questions later, it's preferable to pay a modicum of attention to what he's saying). So, I've had to keep "functioning" and my business doesn't run itself. And I've kept "going" but with the near constant, underlying and uncomfortable feeling that what I really needed to do was to succumb to the temptation of allowing myself to be where every instinct of my being was telling me that was where I needed to be ... possibly, in order to let it pass?

But, on Sunday, the clocks changed and daytime suddenly became a longer prospect. By Monday, the annual and mysterious recurrence of my BST "human" persona appeared this time with avengeance. And this year, I have a very hopeful feeling about the Spring and Summer months. A crystal ball would be so useful because I don't know what will happen in the forthcoming weeks and months but I'm very optistic about whatever it may turn out to be. It will be right.

Spring fever? Could well be!

Memento Moggy - The Sad Dead Mog Blog

2009-03-28T17:21:00.001Z

Sweepy (1992 - 2009) - RIP

I think I may be writing this as cat-harsis. (Thought I'd better get THAT one out of the way).

I'm going to have to revise my biography. We no longer have two cats as dear little Sweepy died this morning. He'd had a good innings and died in his favourite sun-bathing position in the garden.

He gambolled cutely into our lives with his brother Sooty 17 years ago. Their father was a Siamese and their Mum was a black farm cat. They were both jet black but with Siamese features and voices.

They lived quite happily in our old house which was spacious enough for them to avoid our old German Shepherd dog, Tilly. When we moved into our current, smaller house, the two cats took up residence in our shed where they seemed happier.

Sweepy was always the more "challenged" of the two cats - he was cross-eyed (often a feature of Siamese cats) and I presume that he saw two of everything. Poor thing always used to bump into the dog that WAS there!

He disappeared for about six weeks when we moved to Bournemouth and turned up miles away from our home in a desperately thin, hungry and dishevelled state. He made a full recovery after several days and nights of being hand-fed and wrapped up in a towel with a warm hot water bottle ... usually on my lap. His brother also disappeared for a while when we moved but he fared much better - on the flat roof of a "greasy spoon" where he was fed with chicken each day.

Over the past year or so both cats have been getting thinner and their jet black fur was liberally interspersed with the pure white tell-tale strands of feline old age. Sweepy, in particular, in recent weeks, had been staggering around - I think he may have had a stroke. However, he didn't appear to be in any pain and whenever we went into the shed, he still came to us for strokes and cuddles but today he ran out of energy and decided that he'd had enough.

I've surprised myself by feeling more than a little upset as the day has worn on. Not least because I fear that the end may also be nigh for his brother. Apart from when they both disappeared, they've been inseparable - always slept curled up together and now Sooty won't have his brother and playmate to keep him company.

In the great scheme of things, the passing of a cat really doesn't matter too much. Josh was far more upset when our old dog died. He chatted to me about Sweepy for about five minutes earlier today but then his new scooter took precedence and, of course, he has Ethel and Valerie, the wonder gerbils to take care of (or to watch whilst either DH or I take care of them ... I knew that would happen).

So the challenged little cat with the cheerful face and baby like miaow is no more - but I'll remember him.

A little light lunacy to end the day

2009-03-26T21:27:00.000Z

There is something about Twitter that occasionally makes me very naughty indeed.

I'm not usually a naughty person but every now and then, I simply can't help myself and I end up writing tweets that may cause the person reading them to believe that either I am being very serious or that I am entirely ga-ga. Ga-ga as in "founder member of the seriously barking mad society".

Earlier this week, I was surprised - nay, thrilled - to discover that I was being followed by @therightcast.

When I see someone new in my "follow box", my habit is to read their biography and, if they have a website, I take a peek at that, too. Oh, I hit lucky with @therightcast. It is a website advertising jobs for actors, singers, dancers and all things theatrical.

Marvellous, I thought. After nearly 53 years on this planet, SOMEONE has finally recognised my extraordinary talent. I thought, "I must tweet them immediately" - and I did.

I asked them if they were aware of any suitable singing and dancing jobs in the UK ... the following conversation ensued:

@RedMummy we have lots of casting notices online check them out: http://tinyurl.com/dksmbs there might be a job waiting.

I followed their advice and, indeed, was happy to discover that there are going to be auditions for a new Disney stage production in London, so I wrote to them as follows:

@therightcast This is very good news. Could you recommend a voice coach so that I can apply for forthcoming UK Disney production as a singer

I eagerly awaited their response.

@RedMummy I don't know much about the voice scene in the UK, sorry.

Needless to say, I was rather upset at this minor setback and slightly aggrieved that they didn't know much about the "voice scene" but I'm an optimistic person and tweeted back ...

@therightcast I will make some enquiries of my own & revert to you when I can sing like Barbra Streisand.

I'm saddened and quite puzzled that they don't seem to be following me any longer.

It's not in my nature to be too downcast for too long and today I was followed by @DailyGay. Hooray! Now's my opportunity to fulfil a lifelong ambition. I welcomed them most politely and tweeted:

@dailygay I would like to apply to become a gay icon. Could you let me know if you have any vacancies?

At this point in time, I haven't heard back from them but I remain hopeful - and, of course, the minute I do hear from them, I shall blog about it to keep you up-to-date.

I wonder if Henry Root's on Twitter?

The Longest Hour

2009-03-24T11:01:00.000Z

Saturday started off in much the same vein as most of our Saturdays do. DH was in a benevolent mood and generously let me have a lie-in. Josh was happy and just a tad more boisterous than his usual exuberant self as he'd invited a friend round to play in the afternoon.

The afternoon arrived rather sooner than I expected as I hadn't quite finished luxuriating in my lazy Saturday morning. DH, continuing in his mood of benevolence, decided to take the dogs along with Josh and his friend for a walk across the Common. How sensible, thought I! He'll wear the dogs out and the boys can run around playing frisbee, chasing each other or hunting for the newly acquired boomerang which never does seem to come back regardless of however closely we follow the instructions.

Josh had mooted the possibility that Daddy could walk the dogs whilst he and his friend played in the local storage area for spliff butt-ends, used condoms and syringes. I believe that Bournemouth Borough Council calls the area "a playground". This possibility was negated immediately by the cruel Mummy on the grounds that the apparatus in the so-called "playground" was far more suited to children much younger than Josh and his friend and, invariably, the "children" frequenting the playground were, given its catchment area, doubtless parents themselves and given to roughly shoving aside those kids who genuinely wanted to play. DH and I both agreed and voiced our opinion that a good run along the Common would be a far better prospect for two little boys with excess energy to burn off. So with those instructions clearly ringing in their ears, the intrepid walkers set off ...

I installed myself comfortably in front of the computer and settled down for an hour or so of uninterrupted twittering.

After about 20 minutes, my 'phone rang. I answered it and heard the words that no mother wants to hear. An uneasy silence then the voice of a husband trying very hard to sound calm and "matter-of-fact", asking "Is Josh at home with you?"

Well, of course he wasn't and neither was his friend.

I'm writing this well before the watershed and cannot therefore repeat the response I gave to the now not so terribly "Dear" Husband.

Keys grabbed, bag grabbed, 'phone grabbed and into the car. Poor car's suspension may never recover from several high speed launches into mid air over the "traffic calming" humps in our road. I parked at the Common and began hunting for two children. They were nowhere to be seen.

Several more increasingly fraught telephone exchanges between DH and I ensued. No-one batted an eyelid in the playground as I was using vernacular that was everyday speech to the people who frequent it.

I gave up looking in the playground and jogged the entire length of the Common peering behind bushes and trees as I huffed and puffed my way along. I saw lots of children but none of them were "mine".

By this point in time, I was already rehearsing the appeal I would make on TV that night and the cinema in my head was replaying every horrifying occurrence involving lost children that I'd ever seen.

My 'phone rang once more. My hands were trembling as I answered it. A very small voice said "Hello Mummy, I'm back at the house".

Tearful and exhausted I went back to the car and drove back home.

I did that "bad Mummy" thing of not waiting for explanations and just ushered Josh's friend into my car and took him back to his parents.

When I re-appeared at home, a Josh with a very wobbly bottom lip flung himself into my arms and told me what had happened. It seems that his friend had "really, really" wanted to stay in the playground and as he was "our guest", Josh had persuaded DH that they would not move "an inch" and would be there waiting for him on his return from walking the dogs. Josh's friend had wanted to explore "the bit behind the playground" and Josh - ever the polite and accommodating host - had "innocently" and "grudgingly" agreed. Hence, when DH arrived back at the playground, the boys were still exploring "the bit behind" and DH couldn't see them - which is when I received the first 'phone call.

Josh was grounded for the weekend. The very worst sort of grounding that only involved homework, meals and early nights - no TV and no computer AT ALL.

DH - for his complete inability to adhere to the simplest of instructions and total ineptitude at controlling two small humans who are 46 years his junior - is grounded until further notice.

Mother's Day was wonderful. After the initial relief, I suffered the nervous reaction of a full-blown migraine - so bad that I could barely read the sweet words on Josh's card.

The memory of that hour will stay with me for as long as I live. May it always and only be "just a memory".

State Schools - Satisfaction (not always) Guaranteed

2009-03-19T13:06:00.000Z

I was reading the Daily Telegraph last night after a long and tiring day of worrying about Josh and the problems he's had with being bullied at school and happened upon an interesting article by Professor Tanya Byron entitled "The Fear of Young People Damages Us All".  It's a well thought out and carefully considered article and well worth a read.  It can be found at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/5007885/The-fear-of-young-people-damages-us-all.html

I felt moved to post a response to her article (which hasn't yet appeared in the "Comments" section of the web page).  My response was as follows:

"I'm not at all scared of young people and, indeed, I agree with much of what Professor Byron has to say but I am the mother of a bullied child and I do feel that an increasingly faddish education system is letting down not only the children who misbehave but also those children who are on the receiving end of the bad behaviour. Schools don't seem to have mastered an effective way of imposing sensible boundaries for children and sadly, those children who need such boundaries, are unlikely to have any at home either. In my experience, greater emphasis is placed on enabling bullies to become "better people" at schools rather than helping an often traumatised bullied child to feel secure in the school environment. Exclusions and suspensions don't appear to be a deterrent to children who misbehave and I wonder if Professor Byron has any suggestions to help those kids AND to minimise the effect of the bullying on kids who don't misbehave and whose education is continually disrupted by the poor behaviour of their less well-behaved school mates."

While I was busy writing the above, DH called me to say that Alistair Campbell was discussing State Schools with Matthew Bannister (who's standing in for Jeremy Vine) on Radio 2. I tried, too late, to get through to the show and to speak to Mr Campbell with whose views I also broadly agree. I ended up by sending an email to the programme and wanted to ask what the solution to disciplining badly behaved children should be as, quite patently, the current faddish regulations of not being able to truly discipline a badly behaved child and the situation of teachers trying to keep order with both hands tied, isn't working.

I'm interested to know if either Professor Byron or Mr Campbell have a solution and if either of them do, please, please do tell me what it is!

Two Gerbils & A Binload of Goths

2009-03-17T16:03:00.000Z

Here I am in my office looking out over a beautifully sunny garden. I have to say that Bournemouth is exactly the right place to be in such good weather. Redhill Common has, for the time being, ceased to be a quagmire and walking the dogs over the past few days has been a firm-footed pleasure.

DH arrived home from Switzerland last Friday and was immediately set upon by Josh who press-ganged him into rushing into Winton to purchase not just one but two baby gerbils. They are now safely installed in a spacious sawdust filled des res in his bedroom. Josh insists upon calling the sweet babies Gizmo and Roadrunner but the babies and I have a pact and the names I call them are much more suited to two little girls - Valerie and Ethel. At the time of writing, I have no evidence to suggest that they're not both girls and whilst I do love all my animals, I am fervently hoping that they are. Two gerbils will do very nicely, for now, thank you! They are dear little things and really enjoy being held and stroked. Josh has committed to taking care of them - much in the same way that he promised to take care of the rabbit who lives in our shed. I'm hoping that this time he means what he says!

We had a quietish family weekend and DH let me have a couple of much needed lie-ins and we had a curry from our favourite take-away in Wallisdown on Saturday night. I couldn't let all this generosity go unmarked and spent a goodly part of Sunday ironing.

Yesterday started off as a normal hum-drum Monday. Josh was happy enough to go to school in the morning, I spent the day doing some admin and a little guilt-free tweeting and DH cleaned the patio with a high-pressure thingy. When I collected Josh from school, I discovered that all was not as it should be.

I don't know whether my son is a bully-magnet but he does seem to attract more than his fair share of quite bad trouble at school. He was SO thrilled to be attending a specialist Arts & Media College which has fantastic facilities for a kid with a leaning towards all things artistic but I've watched him become more and more disillusioned since he started there last September.

He was beaten up badly in January which resulted in a boy being suspended for two days and yesterday he was rather roughly placed in a large rubbish bin by two "Goths". He'd committed the heinous crime of saying to one of them that he liked the leather coat he was wearing. A bad error of judgment ... I hate to think what would have happened if Josh would have said he didn't like the coat. He was told by the two charming youths to co-operate in being placed in the large bin or they would throw him into it head first. He co-operated. Fortunately a prefect saw what had happened, helped Josh out of the bin and as punishment a member of staff gave the two Goths a buckshee day off school today.

I am finding it more and more frustrating to discover that the bullies - at school and throughout life - are winning. The school's hands are tied regarding punishment and these kids are pandered to at the expense of the education of children who really do wish to work hard and get on. Instead of an education system that helps kids to aspire to achieve, the "looked after" kids and those who misbehave ensure that the only common denominator being adhered to is the very lowest one.

Bad kids need to be punished. Giving them a day or two off school whenever they misbehave is not seen as a punishment by them - and I suspect it isn't seen as a punishment by their parents either. They need to feel just a tiny bit frightened and no-one within the school system seems to be able to frighten them. I would quite happily volunteer to be the "Frightening Tzar" but I suspect that this would go against some civil liberties charter somewhere, so could we not embarrass them instead? Rather than saying to them "You've done something wrong, have two days off" couldn't there be a system whereby if they bully another child they're made to wear a fluorescent pink hi-vis vest for a week with the words "I AM A BULLY" boldly written thereon? They wouldn't look quite so cool to their friends then, would they?

I tried to see the head teacher this afternoon when I collected Josh as he is understandably somewhat nervous about repercussions when he goes to school tomorrow when the bullies will have returned from their day's punishment at home. There wasn't a member of staff available to see me. However, I am to expect "a 'phone call". I wonder if and when it will arrive and how far I'll get with my pink-jacketed embarrassment programme suggestion? I don't feel too confident that I'll get very far at all.

So once again I'm in the middle of another week struggling to understand a faddish upside-down education system in a world that's seems to me to have gone entirely mad.

I wonder what the remainder of the week has in store for us?

A Touch of the Old Domestics

2009-03-11T09:47:00.000Z

I've been very conscious of the fact that I haven't added a new post to this blog for several days and now that a dear subscriber has nudged me, I feel compelled to write a little something regardless of how uninteresting it may turn out to be. If I get too boring, please feel free to throw rotten tomatoes and abuse at your computer screen!

I've spent the last few days concentrating on all things domestic. Twitter ensures that I am constantly behind in keeping house and home in any state of "togetherness" and towards the latter end of last week most of my tweets were tinged with guilt at not having made any inroads into tackling the European Ironing Mountain that had grown organically in my kitchen. I did climb that mountain on Friday and it took so long that, in the surreal world of Twitter, search parties and St Bernard dogs were being sent out to look for me. I also managed to vacuum before DH arrived home from Berlin so the weekend got off to a serene start. DH has mastered the art of "looking at me with a tone in his voice" and I grudgingly complete most acts of domesticity in order to avoid these. On Friday, I succeeded and DH was delighted to be home and to be fed a home-cooked incineration in a clean and tidy house. I have nominated myself for Stepford Wife of the Year and fully expect to win!

Josh had a sleepover on Saturday night at a friend's house which afforded DH and I the rare opportunity of going out for a meal without the family comedian in tow. I can't say I noticed any discernible effects of the current economic crisis in Westbourne where we had to wait for over half an hour to be seated in our favourite restaurant. It was heaving with people who didn't appear to have a care in the world!

Sunday comprised a quiet "family" day which we all enjoyed and I was even quite pleased to note that I didn't have any apparent withdrawal symptoms from not having been on Twitter for nearly two days in a row. Monday was designated as an "Admin" day which is probably why I'll be concentrating on admin this afternoon!

DH went off to Basel yesterday morning and I had been "volunteered" to help with catering for about a hundred people at a gathering last night. I spent all day sauteeing chicken, dashed home to collect Josh from school, showered and dashed back out again to "serve up". I was truly exhausted by the time the day was over. It was actually very enjoyable but I'm glad it can now be referred to in the past tense.

There were a couple of evenings that developed into "nights" that were truly manic on Twitter last week. It's very rare that I laugh out loud at anything in this miserable world. Television and radio programmes sometimes raise the glimmer of a smile on my face but there was some absolutely outstanding quick witted banter happening on Twitter. Side-splitting stuff ... the kind that makes me grateful that DH was abroad as he would have been truly disturbed to hear me cackling like a loon at some of the 140 character "one-liners". It's magical when that happens but quite a strange feeling to be in the middle of a truly outrageous comedy show! I've also started to follow and be followed by some really interesting people and I'm amazed and grateful that I can learn so much from so many in so short a time.

I've noticed on Twitter that one only has to mention (or "tweet") about a subject briefly before one is followed by a myriad of other Tweeters who are either interested in the same subject or hoping to sell something in connection with it. I happened to mention Berlin in a couple of tweets and almost immediately was followed by what appeared to be the Tourist Office there. (I say "appeared to be" - the follower tweeted in German to me and too many decades have passed since I sat my German "O" Level and I'm afraid I didn't actually understand a word that was written). I must hone my tweeting skills to be followed by people who are actually in a position to pander to my exact tastes. This week I shall be endeavouring to mention MacLaren F1s, Manolo Blahnik shoes and mews cottages in south west London. Follow me, follow me and send free gifts!

I made a couple of "observational" tweets to the BBC's Director of News who tweeted back that I should work for the BBC. I informed him that I used to work for the BBC. I said that I wouldn't mind returning to the Beeb on contract as I'm a "rare breed" and "I know about broadcasting". I've heard nothing further from him! There's no place at Auntie these days for an aged person who speaks good, grammatical English in "received pronunciation" and who has a good grasp that News bulletins should be for the unbiased reporting of the News and that Current Affairs programmes should be for commentary and analysis and that there should never, ever be any "fuzzy lines" between the two. When fuzzy lines occur, the public feels that the broadcaster can no longer be trusted. There have been far too many "fuzzy lines" of late - not only from the Beeb but also from ITN and most satellite News channels.

So I've arrived in the middle of this week without really knowing how I got here. The News is so rotten I'm only dipping into it when I feel strong enough but if anything grabs me about anything, I'll no doubt blog again before too long!

A ramble on the News

2009-03-05T10:23:00.000Z

I really wouldn't like to be a politician - any politician for any political party. It would be like being married to me and DH suffers badly because I have an excellent memory about things that happened long ago and can repeat aged conversations practically verbatim. [Of course, I quite often go upstairs and can't remember why I've done so - but that's different - and not really relevant to this particular ramble. I shall elaborate on that ... if I remember to ... another time]. Apparently my near "total recall" is a very annoying trait. I find it quite useful but DH dislikes being reminded of every single misdemeanour - real or perceived - stretching back to the day we first met. I show no mercy and "gently" correct him whenever he displays signs of False Memory Syndrome.

How does all that tie in with the News? I watched Gordon Brown delivering his speech to Congress last night and, of course, noticed that his warnings regarding "Protectionism" didn't go down quite as well as many of the other parts of his address. After the insert showing his address, out rolled the inevitable pundits - one of whom was a chappy by the name of Scott Paul who represented the Alliance for American Manufacturing. He chided our Gordon for his views on protectionism stating "It's only protectionism when somebody else is doing it" and of course cited GB's bite of "British jobs for British workers". I wonder if the best policy for a politician is "to say it best when saying nothing at all"?

Another item that grabbed my attention was Chris Broad justifiably being very cross indeed about the terrorist attack in Pakistan. The man came within an inch of losing his life yet he was berated by the Head of the Pakistan Cricket Board for making critical remarks about the appalling lack of security that enabled the attack to occur. I'm sure that Mr Board wasn't in any way unfeeling about the six commandos who sadly lost their lives in the attack, but surely one is apt to forget one's manners just a little bit when in shock after being right in the centre of such carnage?

My ears prick up at any news regarding the television industry and I felt sad that ITV is going through such a rough time and that so many jobs are to be lost ... not because I have any great fondness for commercial TV or Radio in this country - I'm diehard BBC. And I certainly didn't feel wholly reassured by Michael Grade who said that the quality of output wouldn't suffer because of the cutbacks as I take issue with the quality of most ITV output anyway - but the BBC suffers indirectly when ITV has a hard time. I think back to the ITV strike and blank screens of the late 70s - which did the BBC no favours whatsoever. Auntie needs competition from a healthy rival not a sickly one. That said, there's competition in the media everywhere now - and I'm quite liking it! How else would I be able to get my humble little views across to such a potentially wide reading public?

Ramble over! Do you agree with anything I've said? Or does anything in the preceding paragraphs irk you rotten? Please comment and let me know!

Who feels safe?

2009-03-04T12:03:00.000Z

I'm sadly becoming quite used to feeling fearful and last night as I watched the news about the appalling attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Pakistan, dread once again washed over me like a tidal wave.

9/11, 7/7, the death of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007, the atrocious attacks on Mumbai in December 2008 and now yesterday's horrific events in Lahore. I fear the list won't stop there. Perhaps we're becoming inured to the fact that these atrocities "just occur" and we're meant to just cope with them, move on and not feel anything much at all.

I worry that we're being manipulated into blaming perfectly innocent people who have every right to call themselves British or American or French simply because of their religious or cultural beliefs.

Perhaps we should be thinking of the reasons why ONE man or certainly only a FEW men are planning world domination from the caves of Tora Bora in Afghanistan. Do we know why he or they want to dominate the world? Did we know why Napoleon did ... or Hitler? We'll probably never know but meanwhile it would help if we could just accept each other in our own countries and show tolerance to people whose beliefs or customs may not be the same as our own but who have every right to live here peacefully without prejudice being shown to them or abuse meted out to them.

Lack of acceptance of people leads to disenfranchisement. Disenfranchisement leads to weak spots and that's where recruitment to violent causes is allowed to occur. And the chaos continues and these men NEED chaos.

Bewitched, Bloggered and Bewildered

2009-03-04T10:15:00.000Z

Good morning from sunny Bournemouth. (Note to self: It would be entirely wrong of me to refer to my place of domicile as Catatonia by the Sea and I certainly wouldn't want to offend too many of Bournemouth's residents as they may come after me in their mobility vehicles).

So, this is my very first post. I created the account last night and then, due to a complete inability to understand anything technical, I found I couldn't actually sign into the blog to post anything! I am very easily confused by computers but fortunately some sweet friends on Twitter came to my rescue and I think I may have followed their advice (although I can't honestly be sure) as I find myself here on the dashboard!

I have at least four thousand things that I want to tell you - ranging from my depression regarding the current economic climate, my dismay and fear at the alarming increase in world terrorism to the more pressing and urgent issues concerning the European Ironing Mountain in my kitchen and at what stage in the week will I vacuum prior to my Dear Husband (hereinafter to be referred to as DH) returning from Berlin - would it be best to (a) get to grips with it today (b) whizz round with the Sebo just before he arrives home or (c) do both. Please advise and please note that (c) is NOT an option!

I wondered what I should write about when blogging but somehow I don't think I'm going to have too much of a problem and, as friends on Twitter will know, I do SO enjoy leaping in and offering a short burst of (often entirely irrelevant) opinion on most things!

But now, Eight Legs and wagging two tails are staring at me in a very hopeful manner and I must - after their confinement to the house during yesterday's torrential rains - take them for a muddy plod across the Common.

If I used every ounce of will power (and the WillpowerDaq is currently VERY low), I don't think I'll be able to help myself and I will be back later!