THE VIEW FROM THIS END

THE NEW, NOT SO NICE, ME.

2012-01-31T02:51:00.000-08:00

Since the advent of The Flecker I've changed. To be expected most of you will say...be odd if you hadn't.You must be apprehensive, angry, frustrated at your lack of control over the day to day running of your household...irritated by the restrictions the symptoms place upon you..and yes, a little bit of all of that comes into it but the biggest change is in my attitude to the world around me.

I just don't care who is running the Rovers Return or the Queen Vic. It means naught to me if Dr. Who regenerates without me or if the Daleks take over the world. I have no interest in knowing which of the three Stoogies have put their foot in their mouths and lied to us again on National telly, nor do I care who wins

the US presidency, who is the chef du jour, who escaped the Jungle, skated their socks off, won any one of Cowell's tacky shows or became a multi-millionaire over night. I cannot read further than the first lines of any book or newspaper before losing interest and spend a good deal of time staring off into space while listening to Radio Four...the only medium that does not bore me to tears.

The wide circle I do care about encompasses half the world includes the family of course and old friends and my blogging mates.

As for the rest it's still all about me.

Back but empty-headed

2012-01-26T03:18:00.000-08:00

It's been a bit rough and Saz has kept you up to date so no point in re-hashing.

Suffice it to say I am once again attached to the Net, and I will never turn my computer off again, ever. NOAOS has fixed it so that Paco 'hibernates' who'd of thunk it? Oh and MLS, I didn't do it and don't know how to undo it, but for you and all of us who hate veri...it will get fixed.

I hate how I feel...just...not well. Tired, of course and a little bit icky and a little bit this and a little bit that; and the cellulitus in my arm, caused, unbelievably by the rubbing of the plastic name tab at the Hospice of all places, means I must try to sleep with my arm elevated and the cashmere scarf tied to the bedpost precisely for that purpose raised a few eyebrows.

My hair is growing in, curly, and the fact that it is also snowy white is making me look more bald than ever. Rather like a bald eagle.

And now a picture to make you smile, circa 1972

The blonde and the Bad Boy

Streeeeeee-ike Three? Or, here Pussy.

2012-01-08T04:10:00.000-08:00

Because of my tiny deep veins I am left with massive bruises each time a Vampire comes to take blood, it was decided that I should have a PIC line installed...a permanent line inserted beneath the skin from an arm along the Brachial into or near the heart. This was to be done two days before Chemo. So, last Wednesday NOAOs took me over to the hospital for what should have been a quick routine job. Turned out to be another four hours before we left and as I was washed out went straight home.

On Friday I noticed that my left hand was swollen [the side where the PIC line had been inserted] and my heart sank and with good reason; what should have been at the most, a three hour stay ended up to be six and a half plus some bad news.

By the time I was first seen, doctors consulted, scans decided, waiting times counted, scan completed, colleagues consulted and decisions made and finally passed on to me, and two hours had past. Seems that the Line was in three centimetres too far, that I now had a blood clot or two and...icing on the cake kiddos...would have to inject myself into my abdomen once every evening for...whistles bell and drum roll here please:

THE NEXT SIX MONTHS

You couldn't make it up, could you.

By the time the chemotherapy had run in and we were finally home and was still murmuring 'six months, I should live that long.'

But then I thought...strike three...you are out kiddo. But NOAOS son said
'What if all this time you are not that strikee, but the cat with nine lives? Still got 6 for the feckers to feck up.

There's a thought.

CALL ME NAIVE, BUT...

2012-01-03T03:29:00.000-08:00

IF I HAD SAID TO YOU TWENTY, THIRTY YEARS THAT IF YOU GAVE ME A SET SUM OF MONEY TO INVEST FOR YOU, THAT PROMISED A SET SUM FOR YOUR PENSION...ON PAPER AND SIGNED MY NAME OR THE NAME OF MY FIRM, TO THAT PROMISE. AND IF I TOOK YOUR MONEY AND SPREAD IT AROUND RISKING IT IN WAYS NOT AGREED UPON IN OUR ORIGINAL TALKS. AND THEN ONE DAY THE NEWSPAPERS RAN WITH THE HEADLINE THAT MILLIONS WILL BE AFFECTED AS MORE FUNDS FAIL.

WOULD YOU NOT BE BLOODY ANGRY WITH ME?
WOULDN'T YOU DEMAND TO KNOW WHERE THE MONEY HAS GONE?
AND WHO HAS BEEN FIRED?
AND WHY I...NOW CEO AM STILL PAID MILLIONS?

I am not actually terribly political...and as JP swore that his father never used insurers etc and look at him, we never ever insured ourselves...cars, houses yes, businesses, yes but endowments, pensions nope, we had savings and they were safe, weren't they? Well until we had the 0.1/2 interest rate we were.

But l confess to blood red rage when l read of more ordinary, hard-working, salt of the earth, pay up and shut up folk losing their money and even having to delay their retirement.

HAS ANYONE BEEN JAILED?
HOW CAN THIS BE RIGHT?

EEny meeny miny mo:-

2011-12-31T02:38:00.000-08:00

It has been pretty much the status quo here. Sleep on and off, bathe, dress, laze around until I can get back into bed without looking like too much of a wuss [slang: weakling] Thing is, that although the Chemotherapy knocks backs the fecker it makes me so lack energy that the slightest effort costs, then when the Chemotherapy. is over for another ten days I get more energy yet breathing is difficult. So you can imagine I was not best pleased to find that the fecker...indirectly, I cannot lay the blame totally at it's door, decided that I could take more and racked what goes for brains eventually coming up with...

Laugh at your peril:

Haemorrhoids.

I am going to leave you with this image...why should I suffer alone?

Hosepipe:

2011-12-22T02:46:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at our districts' Hospice. Not something I ever imagined doing for myself, nor someting I have ever done for another. The word has always chilled me, and it should not have done because it's derivative:-

noun

a house of shelter or rest for pilgrims, strangers, etc.,especially one kept by a religious order.

Medicine/Medical .

a health-care facility for the terminally ill that emphasizes pain control and emotional support for the patient and family, typically refraining from taking extraordinary measures to prolong life.

a similar program of care and support for the terminallyill at home.

preaches nothing but love and caring.

I think it is the 'terminally ill' phrase that I don't like, determined as I am to beat this thing...and I have to say that the vast majority of the patients staff and volunteers I met, do seem to have that mind set, many are back after some good years of remission...six and seven years in some cases. However, despite my misgivings I did come away with a feeling of relaxation that I do not feel all the time at home...it is not easy to be on the end of an endless stream of help however willingly given. One knows the sacrifices being made daily by one's loved ones.

In the afternoon after lunch we all sat back on our loungers, like so many oldies...dozed off and I even had a foot massage. Then a Carol service in the Chapel... innocuously non-denominational and rather sweet. I my dears, did not need the hymn sheet. They had this child by seven years.

My driver, Stuart...in is eighties...smoker with a lovely fruity cough, bought me home.

I shall go again next Wednesday and all Wednesdays after that when I'm free, and from what I saw, will enjoy the odd few nights of respite care.

Who knew?

2011-12-13T07:01:00.000-08:00

They have travelled with me all my married life; the first things I pack and unpack. Faded now, even yellowed where the sun of France, Spain and Mexico have burned, they sit where I can see them, unopened for years, just waiting to welcome me back. I have more...hardbacks bought when things were good. Angeliques, Catherines and Marianne s. All beautiful, all tempestuous, mostly green-eyed with a figure Sophia Loren would be proud of.

I would be the first to admit [since doing my degree and becoming a bit poncey] that these is no literary merit to these genres of the bodice busting-historical romance-adventures stories [although I have just spotted Ayn Rand...so that's where she went?]. Narrative driven they do exactly what they say on the covers.They tell stonking adventure stories with lots of heaving bosoms, sardonic men, gypsies, pirates and even magic.

I love 'em all.

Yesterday I picked one up...and now the die is cast. I must to the beginning go. Anglelique.. a child, poor and barefoot. Sigh!

And when the well ran dry in the 70's and no-one was writing that genre any more...I wrote one myself. A two volume masterpiece...Meg and the Rufus Box and Meg and the Blood Red Stones. Brilliant they are. Stuck on a shelf somewhere, waiting to make my fortune. Almost publishable the man said, at Collins. But kids and life, travel and work got in the way. Well...that's my excuse and I am sticking to it.

STEE-RIKE TWO!!!

2011-12-10T06:50:00.000-08:00

Three Strikes and you're out in that Yankee version of our children's game of Rounders, I believe.

Well, the Flecker has had me down twice, and I'm still here-so, one more and you are down and dusted you hybrid, parasitic, cowardly crawling piece of CRUD.

I'm gussied up like my beloved Suldog

I'm swinging my bat or is it arms?)

I'm aiming at your centre

I'm coming to get you

Fleck off.

have I mixed my metaphors...

does the pitcher or the batter make the strike?

Who is winning...it or me.

How should this have been written? [it was done at 3.20am]

Help me out Jim...

anyone?

A lesson well learned.

2011-12-04T08:24:00.000-08:00

Left to Right: Seriously Irish and seriously loyal friend, Beauty Queen, Moi, No-nonsense girl, three baduns, Louisa...best friend from day one: Serious Lesbian who HATED me. Two younguns who had been cadets.

Something happened, or rather did not happen last night reminding me of an incident that occurred long long ago but one which I've always remembered with a shiver; not for what did happen but for what could have.

I'm young, twenty one but still the oldest of this little group. We've had a month of School and a month of Ward Mondays and we are still wearing our hated Chip bag hats so are in our first three months. This picture is being posed for an article in the local paper.

Only six months on from this picture and I am on night duty.

Night duty and I don't exactly hit I off. I'm young and in love with life and dancing, and handsome American Airmen who swarm over Margate and Ramsgate...the two towns nearest to Manston Air Base. After my shift is over I am supposed to eat dinner [cooked the night before and warmed up as the day nurses eat their breakfast.] Then I should go to my quarters at the night nurses house...tuck myself up and sleep until it is time to get ready for another shift. Cannot be done. I toss and turn, and eventually I get up,and dress and creep away to my friends..to coffee bars or just to walk along the beach.
I do this for at least three nights and by the fourth night usually just about make it into my bed the next morning.

This particular night I'm not too well...beginnings of a cold, or just a tummy ache but, as I am on a convalescent ward set in a Quonset hut outside the hospital I have no qualms in settling down on two chairs with my apron crossed in front, shoes off, hat off...and eyes closed. I have done bottle round, night sister has done the meds, men are tucked up save for a couple going home the next day and are playing cards...and smoking. [truly ash trays sit on every bedside locker]

When I awake it is to door banging and pealing telephone bells. I cannot move 'nurse's paralysis' has struck me down; a phenomenon I have heard about almost as a myth...I know no-one to whom this has happened.

Then Sister Redmond is there, shouting at me...I still cannot move..she shakes me and actually slaps me...I remember her father is in the ward, a late admission just before I arrived. She is beside herself with anger..he has pulled out his catheter and is in pain. Now I can move.

I am sent off duty...the shame is immense.

Matron kept me waiting to hear my fate...at least three days passed before I was commanded to appear in her office.
I was a good nurse and they didn't grow on trees, no point to sack me.
She did the worst thing ever. Beside her desk was a large sack and in that sack there must have been two hundred Terry Towelling nappies [diapers] all needing hemming. And I HATED sewing. How did she find out? I did them all, slowly but surely and actually got quite good, taking a pride in the neatness of my work.

A moral there somewhere chaps and chapesses.

BALDILOCKS

2011-11-30T03:54:00.000-08:00

Seventy-one years ago I lost my hair to ringworm. My next Chemo is, I am told going to loosen my hair. Thought it was apt to re-post.

For Christmas, in the 'Ringworm Year', the older girls decided to put on a play. It was to be Goldilocks, and the second smallest girl was chosen to play the heroine, mainly because she was able to fit into the Bear's 'beds' [three laundry baskets] but also because she had golden hair.

I watched all the rehearsals, and knew all the words by heart, except for the Goldilocks part. She had nothing to say. All she had to do was to come on stage, try the porridge on the table, then go to the baskets, try the big one, then the middle one and finally, fall asleep in the smallest. Then, when the three bears came noisily home, she had to sit up and stretch, see the bears and run screaming to the front of the stage where Mr. Diamond would lift her off and she would go running through the audience, out of the door, along the corridor, around the corner to the 'stage' door and back on the stage for the final bow.

All was going well until Goldilocks fell ill; three days to go till Friends of St. Edith's arrived for their annual feel-good night. Eventually someone suggested that, I might do. As soon as they all finished falling about laughing they realised that they had no choice; it was the squeaky voiced bald girl or no-one.

One of the nuns made me a bonnet out of stiffened card and crepe paper tied beneath my chin in a big bow, and yellow wool was stuck in curls next to my face and down the back. In my pink borrowed dress and the blue bonnet I thought I looked very pretty .

The evening of the concert arrived and the hall was filled with the great and the good and the show began.

The Grand Old Duke of York came on with four of his ten thousand soldiers and marched to the top of the hill [two benches] and marched right down again. Someone played the piano and carols were sung and then it was time for the Piece De resistance.

The three bears tramped on stage, did their bit with the porridge, decided to go for a walk and exited stage right.

My cue; I climbed on-stage and smiled at the audience to a chorus of oohs and aahs. Slowly I sampled the father bears porridge and made a huge grimace and much fanning of my mouth to indicate how hot it was...then mother bears...ugh! nasty and cold. Baby Bear's was just right and I scraped the bowl clean; [they were all empty of course, but a great bit of acting don't you think?]

Then over to the baskets..er...beds, jumping into each one and making a great deal of business over the whole thing, ignoring the 'hurry up' gestures of Sister Moira. Finally I lay down in the baby Bear's basket, yawned hugely and closed my eyes. Almost at once the three bears came home. 'Whose been eating my porridge' said father bear, and I nearly shouted 'Me!' Then Ma bear said the same thing and I stuffed my fist in my mouth so that when B.Bear accused someone of eating his all up, I simply kicked my legs in the air, to the delight of the audience who hadn't known they would be seeing farce.

By the time they reached the baskets, true fear was setting in...whoever had done the Bear's make-up was very talented; black fur was stuck to the girl's faces and hands and false sticky up ears all added to the illusion.

I managed to hold out till baby bear shouted '...and there she is' before jumping out of the basket, running to the edge of the stage into Mr. Diamonds waiting arms. Unfortunately, in my zeal to escape from the grizzlies and because Mr. Diamond could hardly see due to the tears in his eyes, we managed it badly, and my paper hat's ribbons tore

Aided by the wind of my flight the bonnet fell backwards exposing my very, very bald head.

Now the hall rocked with laughter as I ran down the aisle and out of the door at the end.

But my trials were not yet over. I knew that with my leaving the stage, the bears had nothing much to do and the play was over. I had to get to the stage door and take my bow with the other girls.

At the end of the corridor was a door I had to pass. It was open and I could see, walking up and down inside, a tall fat man with a long white beard, wearing a bright red coat and trousers. He looked very fierce and I was terrified, turned to stone. I could not go back into the hall, nor could I pass that door.

It seemed like a very long time before someone came to look for me, and when I explained, for some reason fell about laughing all over again!

IMPRESSIONS

2011-11-27T03:38:00.000-08:00

THE NHS IS FANTASTIC

THE NHS IS FECKED

CHEMOTHERAPY IS A DODDLE

CHEMOTHERAPY IS GOING TO BE HARD

IF I AM THINKING ABOUT ORDER OF ~~SERVICE~~ CELEBRATION, AM I BEING SENSIBLY PREPARED OR FATALISTIC?

BEEN ASKED DO I WANT A DNR ORDER...HMMN!

ACTUALLY FEELING PRETTY GOOD, SEEMS LIKE THE FECKER DOESN'T MUCH LIKE WHAT I'M SHOVELLING DOWN.

IF ALL THE CHARITIES, GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS, ETC.SENT THE PEOPLE THEY SAID THEY WOULD TO HELP ME, I WOULD HAVE TO MOVE OUT TO MAKE ROOM FOR THEM. AS IT IS HELP HAS ONLY JUST STARTED TO ARRIVE...HEAVEN ONLY KNOWS HOW WE HAVE MANAGED...BY WE I MEAN OF COURSE MY GLORIOUSLY ABLE JP.

TKMAXXIMAMA

2011-11-22T06:51:00.000-08:00

Been a bit hectic the past few days...and three full days of tests and interviews to come and of course the start of my fight back on Friday so it is fun for me to go back a little bit and tell you about the few hours I spent last Thursday before the big decision; with NOAOS and my darling daughter in law whom I shall call the PLP [perfect little package] and their...er dog, Harry.

He decided to kidnap me, did NOAOS...bit foolhardy really, as he had not fully considered the logistics of the operation, but kidnap me he did. Didn't pack a bag...just me a bit fed up with, well being not me...Oxygen tank was stowed in the boot [next to the petrol tank,] I know..what were we thinking?] We did take my meds, but not new sleeping tab. and that set the scene for the rest of the adventure.. a sort of 'suck it and see' few hours.

Not only did he, I, not consider the implications, he didn't confer with the PLP either, nor could he get to her by Mobi or landmine as it was the very day she had interviews scheduled and would not be home till late.

Ni modo. I am installed, gas tank to hand...and we both look a little askance. He dials the PLP shakes the machine...makes me coffee. And as it is the worst coffee I have ever tasted we get over the hump of [what to do with mum now I've kidnapped her] by dissecting and diagnosing the various methods and machines and cup thickness's before deciding I'll have instant.

I am to have their bed...it is a lovely big comfortable bed but it is their bed. I don't argue. As I am actually in my nightshirt, cunningly disguised as a mini skirt by the sweater I pulled over it...there is little to remove and once in bed I relax. We do what we do best he and I, talk...a lot...about just everything.

Eventually the PLP comes home and, seeing me there does not turn a hair but hugs me home and makes supper.

And so to bed...I take two Co-codomols in lieu of my sleeping tablet but they don't work; sleep has eluded me most nights and I wait for the dawn before nodding off for an hour or so... viscous circle really, I don't sleep ergo I won't sleep and then I don't. This did not mean that I spent the night alone...no no I spent the night whispering and giggling and re-counting and promising, making memories for him to keep and me to guard. The PLP slept well and was up and out of the house by seven. NOAOS and I were drunk on our sleep deprivation.

After a great cup of coffee and nice crispy toast we both collapsed on the sofa's and I believe nodded off for the fraction of a minute till I sparked up:

'Do you know what I would like to do...really like to do?'
'ER, No..but .within reason maman, or even not, as that would be a challenge.'
'I should like to go to TkMaxx, today, this morning, now.'
'It is only 7.20 Ma...the Mall is closed.'
'Okay...we'll wait.' But fired up now as my meds are kicking in.' I know...let's take Harry for a walk.'

I haven't mentioned Harry because, as a rather special and unusual dog he really deserves his own post but I'm a bit greedy and these are mine so he has to share. He is a Yorkie. not one of those fluffy tiny toy York shires which curl up quietly in your pocket and everyone goes gaga, but one of the longer legged variety which can, at any given moment look like a cheeky cartoon with one ear and paw up and the next like a Griffon.
Any hoo...Harry sleeps under the duvet and he did, it was so comforting and we did alright until NOAOS crept up to see if I had slept and woke Harry up who rightly saw him off.

It turned out to be a very short walk...twenty yards tops, before we had to come back.

'I Wonder if they have wheelchairs.?' I think it was I who said those words and heard them come back to me...wheelchair...wheelchair!
No sooner said than done and NOAOS is on the net enquiring. Mall opens at nine...chair can be hired from Motobility..
We throw ourselves back on our sofa's and wait.

Nine twenty and I am ensconced in my smart wheelchair. I look rather like an ancient teenager in my leggings faux mini skirt, zippered top and, if NOAOS had his way, a beanie hat. We prowl through the doors of my favourite shop and I drive forward, catching at cashmere...snatching at silks, fondling footwear, and nuzzling knitting. We do well in TK...but it isn't enough. I am so revelling in this unexpected adventure that I want more...so it is six nighties in Peacocks and Coffee and Croissants at Costa and then, well, a little sense prevails and we make our way back home, [with the Oxygen tank nestling between my legs: what a way to go!] to the sense and sensibilities of what is painfully obvious but which we managed to forget for 14 hours.

I have plans though...one day when I'm feeling OK, and everyone is down here..we are all going to the Mall and we are going to TKMaxximama till we're done.

THE LADY FROM ONCOLOGY SHE SAY:

2011-11-19T03:19:00.000-08:00

YES

THUS AND ALSO SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA

2011-11-15T08:22:00.000-08:00

What I am doing here today my lovelies is apologising. Sometimes I think I am too clever by half, though I do swear this has only happened lately with my new best friends [and which are gradually being weaned off me me lest I get too big-headed]. See, I don't think.

Having upset someone for whom that is unthinkable I pondered some and realised that just because a doctrine doesn't suit me I have no right to diss another's devotion dedication and true belief. Enough dreariness here already so I'll not go back into the past and drag all that muck out again; I'm a very big girl and never had nightmares, just didn't want any part of organised religion.

But, BUT...BUT ! Were I to go that route I think old Zara might fit the bill...bit bonkers. I see my God like a large Nebulous cloud...d'you know what I mean? Clouds of colour swirling across Universes and old Zar's beards and whiskers mixed up inside and a sign says FIND ZARA. He know he didn't get it right first time round...not enough in the planning stages. But one thing my God would be...along with Bonkers, would be fair, none of this spinning round and pointing the finger and saying 'it's youhoo'.

Or perchance I might go the route of the many gods, the gods of minutia; of water, fire, earth and wind, chocolate cake and Tesco.

What I do know is that I am open ready and willing to suck on anything anyone sends me...I even still cannot believe this is happening or that you should give a monkeys behind.

Just don't please tell me it is GOD'S WILL

I now have appointment to see the Oncologist.

FRIDAY NEXT

1pm

with a little bit of blooming luck...

2011-11-13T05:32:00.000-08:00

and a lot of help I may now be able to talk to you without the page looking as if it has been edited by psychedelic spiders. Whilst in the hospital and, under the influence of quite a few, new to me, drugs, well and strange experiences, I would find myself wide awake in the middle of the night and would write furiously on any piece of paper to hand, or a sheet or my thigh....all these bits to be delivered to Sazzie who, amazingly managed to make some sort of sense from them, edit and print them, for which dedication I am truly etc..

I must say though that my story about my nine chapters on Hedonism? was a lot funnier in the original Lesbianism version. So this is where I start putting in the mad meanderings of my midnights thoughts.

So here you are my people, waiting with bated breath this morning, evening, night of the pre biopsy of the bleeding, bloody blight that bites and burns and burrows it’s many headed back-sides in my space. Today we are naming and shaming you, yes? er, no.

Bright-eyed and bushy tailed, scrubbed up and gleaming brightly, their futures glow from the dark Iris, the so white teeth and faux faux very expensively designed to look like Top Shop leggings and casuals....the acolytes tumble onto the ward. It is perfectly evident to anyone with an eye for nuance to recognise the quietly unprepared-think fur coat and no knickers so that when small man...[who I know has very big place in my particular bit of ‘biz) all I know is lovely smile possibly Sr lanken...a lot of's ‘I have decided’s’ even as around and beside him his ineffectual (as it turned out) words are being recorded by his PA’s and er...people. ‘So very sorry, Mrs. er, Mrs...’ waving frantically brought forward...’Annie, but ‘der has bin some confusion...’

Me: No...and no and no. I was promised, it was written, reserved BOOKED.

‘Let me explain.’

‘No.’ I am actually sulking, and glowering, I feel my face lowering and I want to charge him, like a bull. 'Allez you blithering idiot.' With all due respect [oh how those words can wither] for all the many people around you [and I am sorry but I do not know who you are - or what part you are playing in this saga [I am beginning to enjoy this as my dear new steroid friends jog me up a gear in the old thought proccesses ] 3 acolytes begin to speak at once, and I understand that he is the Geriatrics Consultant [Geriatric...moi?] attached to my GP and he it is who alerted this man to my parlous state of wicked Shrek witch [see pics if you think you are hard enough]and pointed out that the swellings involved were not caused by my new best friends the Steroids, but sumpen much more deadly was about to separate brain and body or some such and above and beyond a nasty Geriatric cough.......elevating me onto a higher more interesting plane. Seems I have another Consultant, female, Greek, walks on Mount Olympus, and who, somewhere in this Universe is fed bits and pieces by these Handmaidens, and she will decide in the course of rapidly running out of time, whether or not I live or die.

So- no- not today but tomorrow.

The night has been very interesting - and it is all in texts flying in between Sazzie and I perhaps she can sort them out.

Till we meet again.

Back at home: Wednesday 9 November

Bit of an update here folks.

I am in the hands of my darling and he had it all sussed out. Up most of the day, all the excitement of, well unlimited tv, sulky dog who no longer loves me best...crash course in Apple Mac and I would be ready to sleep at eight. So we’re all geared up...mac out of reach as are phones which tend to be busy with my middle-night meanderings. After half an hour of talking he says, okay, I’m going to read my newspaper, you obviously are not ready to sleep. Actually I am.

I listen as he reads, shuffling the paper, rustling it’s leaves provocatively. Then I’m sure he is eating...surely that is chocolate paper. I accuse him...JP Ja’accuse...or words to that effect, certainly spelt better. Then, suddenly, and I mean just like that, as if knocked on the head, he is asleep. 11pm, good time to go...bit of luck 4 hours...and he is sleep and I not. I text Sazzie on the mean ness of it but the batteries are dead...and there is no free plug in this room which appears to be ready for take off. I listen with bared teeth, I truly want to sleep but...my head itches...I usually have to sleep upright to stop the wheezes driving me bonkers but tonight Im going to lie down and wheeze for England, but, here's another bloody but...I’m imagining, at least I hope I’m imagining, that there are fleas in my mass of pilows.

Surely not, yet my head and neck and my wrists are going some. Steroids? Let’s blame them.

He calls out, quite surly, as if he hasn’t had a good two and half hours of shut eye...’Don’t move anymore, I’m coming in.’

I start to laugh and at first I hear irritation when he says not to get excited or I’ll have to have a Tina special [more of which another time, this aside has gone on long enough and you will have all left me by now].

‘What I really would love is one of your special nectars and...did I not spy scones in the kitchen? He agreed that the idea was good, fixed my pillows bought me mr. mac and that is why we both had a mid-night feast instead of a good nights sleep.

You are not going to like this but I’m moving backwards. I shall tell you that you haven’t missed anything as, at the time of scratching this out in a midnight ramble, I had not been processed of the liver. I have now...but...oh dear those wretched buts.

No, what I’m doing is a bit of The Ronnie Corbutts [sp] Well known is our Ronnie for never being able to tell a story in a straight line.

Some mighty strange things have been a happening to me and don’t any of you go jumping on the ‘God’ theme just yet ‘cos you should know, I’ve certainly never tried to hide it but from five to nine years of age in an extremely rigid Anglo-Catholic system is gonna kill or cure one.

Odd thing number one.

I think it is my second day on the ward. Two new patients arrive to fill our four bays. The woman in the bed opposite is very ill...her neighbour walking wounded as am I. I never learn the name of my neighbour and she leaves that afternoon.

Later, we talk, exchange names and I feel rather strange when I learn there is an Iris and a June...My mother’s name was Iris and, when she danced professionaly called herself June. ‘All we need now is an Eleanor’ I laughed...now that woud be really weird.’

‘I’m Aleanor..will that do?’ asked the darling girl who plays Soccer for Canterbury and cleans and pours us tea and sympathy popping her head up from her trolley.

Can anyone calculate the chances of that happening? Iris eleanor/June all in my room in a time of crisis?

Thought not.

I’m ready for you.

Come on boots...start walkin’

Second odd thing, and you have been warned...not a godloving word, do you hear.

Last night, finally I slept, after a fashion you understand...guided and protected by one quarter of Tina’s magic pill [really got you going on this one, haven’t I?] I slept anyway. I had said goodnight to my loved ones by way of the badly written texts, sent NOAO son home and had completely come to the conclusion that Palliative care was going to be it..the turned heads, the lowered look, the pat phrases...l just thought Oh well.

But I did sleep and awoke in a tangled dissaray. Time? perhaps five hours later...Tina’s pills are the biz...and for a girl such as l, a drug free space filled only with the lovely deadly nicotine, any pill will send me.

So I’m awake and so disorientated. I sit up, untangle the clothes and stagger to the floor. A nurse appears, a dim fugure taking care of a true patient. ‘Go back to bed...’ she says.

‘Yes, I will, ‘ I say...but l need to tell her. ‘I’m fine, truly Im ok.’ No that she appears to mind whether I am ok or not...she’s is misty, odd.

But I am fine, I truly am.

I know.

I have no pain.

I am not confused or scared.

Whatever the outcome l KNOW all is well.

Weird or what?
Made the mistake of telling someone - it was as if someone's hand had been put on my head.

Night night

[most of this was written in the semi-dark, in the middle of the night and disorientated awakenings - and I felt it justified to replicate without too much editing or cleaning up, there are a few more coming up, after which we will be back in real time - Moannie]

A few hours later...

2011-11-09T01:50:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow (Monday) I will have the biopsy which will decide my fate.

but first this side bar...

it is Sunday. I was admitted Tuesday and have been pricked and bled, rayed and scanned and in those few days I have gone from nasty cough to nasty shadow to needing a stent to open the blood supply to some vital organs.

(Mum writes this as if it were a nothing- it was in fact critical- some perspective please Mum. btw I do have her permission to interject at will)

And I have been so sleep deprived that I had begun to believe I was invisible! Thanks in part to the steroid high.

With decision day looming NOAOSon decided that if I couldn't sleep and he couldn't either, he would come and sit with me until I slept. A lovely idea.

However we did rather misbehave.

Complaints were apparently made and we were stonily asked to please keep the noise down. I was sorry and docile but NOAOSon said that we only kept our noise to the level of the ward - why was there for example a bell continuously ringng, machines buzzing, a nebulizer which had not been turned off and a trauma inpatient fretfully looking for his wife?

Staff Nurse left to consult the Sister and returned with the offer of a private sideroom, complete with en-suite and cable telly. Bizarre or what!

I moved in with suitable gratitude thinking of the silence - the absolute bliss of silence - I would sleep at last - for the first time in 5 days I might get more than 3 hours.

well NOAOSon left at 12.40am and it is now 2.35am. the silence is so complete that my wheeze is deafening and frightening - a spider is playing Cirque de Soleil acrobatics above my head and I thin there is a ghost in the corridor.

I hope tomorrows news will get me home.

Milou is lost.
and JP is getting too settled with half the village looking after him.

Moannie x
(Mum has asked me to tell you, that she is so grateful and overwhelmed by your support, love and words of kindness in the last week. I am feeding her your comments and emails. She probably will not be writing here herself for now, she prefers to give me her words to post on her behalf. But she has every word you send in her heart, filling her with strength and courage. Mum thanks you and I and my siblings thank you. Saz)

Sunday....

2011-11-08T17:05:00.000-08:00

There is a humour, quick, hot, RAW, cruel, hilarious in a cancer ward; at least there is in mine - or perhaps it is an unquenchable bubble of the ridiculous in me that sees humour in most things that are taboo to others.

Dignity goes by the west window - boundaries stretch like Popeye's biceps - no gentrified metaphors - no euphemisms but the cancer word is always accompanied by descriptive names, angry adjectives and the vilest epithets.

We survive

A woman screams next door and in the ward behind me a man calls loudly,
'Murder! Murder!,

'Call the Police' she screams, he calls the Police.

June and I - cohorts, funny bones in sync; exchange side glances and begin to giggle - just a slight shaking of shoulders, bobbing movement of the hips. I tell June my theory of sound and mind pictures; a theory expanded by twice daily ingestion of the miracle of steroids, which seem to boost whatever bare minimum of talent you never have shown an interest in.

For example; one night shortly after my first dose. I wrote - in my head and in the middle of the night while all around slept- nine chapters of a thesis on the joys, perils, rights and wrongs of hedonism - a subject on which, I swear to God, I know nothing more than seen in 'the velvet something or other'

One night I solved an equation, 'DUH!!' and another I began a sitcom situated in a cancer ward and so it was not a great stretch to explain how one can or cannot live with weird sounds:

'It goes a bit like this....'

I began, already feeling the thrill of the laugh we were about to have,

'Mrs Tourettes of the mouth goes -
'la baba, la baba, la baba'

and I mean ad infinitum - and we are going mad, needing sleep more than a druggy needs his fix

' It is possible to survive this June', I say,
'What you do is this: you close your eyes and listen for the rhythm; doobly, doobly, dooble dum, repeated at a constant pace in that low voice she is using. Now it is possible to envisage a small herd of Pyrenean mountain goats running across a wooden bridge...'

June's head tips to the side and gives it some thought.

'Yep i can visualise that; small, furry, horny, rough wood. Got it! (Double entendre) ... doobly, doobly, dooble dum, " " " " A HA!!!!'

but then, just as you are about to drop off, lulled by this visual and aural comfort, she suddenly changes tack,
and doobly, doobly, dooble dum, suddenly goes dolacky, dolacky, dolacky ad infinitum.

Bringing us back from the arms of Morpheus just in time to hear Nora scream again and the man yells
' Bloody Murder call the police!'

It is about now that June and I erupt. Squirming with tightly crossed legs and streaming eyes and to finish off the whole debacle off to perfection: Nellie- a rather prim and quaint lady who has been listening with increasing wonderment, sneezes loudly and fires off the loudest 3 gun fart I have ever heard.

Collapse of 3 stout ladies.

( more of this sunday post to come shortly.. don't go away)

Moannie

(posts are chronological, but may be a few days later as I receive them, handwritten then decipher. And yes as I have been asked, if you wish email me I will try and update you as I am able, Saz)

And so...

2011-11-05T18:21:00.000-07:00

The x-ray led the way to a scan that showed it clearly. A nasty stranger had invaded me! Invited.

Next step - identify.We thought in our grasping ignorance.

Our particular god is Greek. She is guarded and protected by her acolytes, who poke, prod and probe her young clean and clear of bug or germ or age or fear! They smile, nod and pass through words back to the messenger, who take down every word on her Apple-mac.

They tell me nothing.

But Toni does.

I've swollen face, neck and throat - I look like my mother times 3. A Shrek monster, pale green and grey hair, thin and lifeless, My arms and hands stiff with oedema, bear testimony to fruitless searches for veins. I blame the massive dose of steroids - my friend now because it soothes the beast that clings with dirty nails to my tender bronchi and lung tissue. Even as it gives me huge appetite (I see beauty all around me) and keeps me awake all night. But it was the beast blocking the major artery, Toni tells me; so the biopsy must wait - a blow. For the beast is quick to grow, aggressive and greedy.

So I have a stent inserted by a team of demi gods drilled to perfection.

I trained in '55 which is to 2011 as the invention of the wheel is to mapping of the human genome.

I watch as a catheter is inserted into the artery in my thigh and passing, painlessly up to a major cloud of white that's blocking and compressing the dark artery- deep in my chest.

The surgeon patiently, kindly answers my questions and seems to be as enthralled as I at the magic he performs when the stent opens and blood gushes through - he takes my hand and asks,

'Can you feel any difference?'

and I think that I must say something encouraging - a small white lie would surely be allowed! I touch my face and start to say,

'It feels less taut, stretched...!'

and then I say, in wonder, 'It is!' - the tenderness has gone, the skin is softer, I swear.

By the time NOAOSon and Lita Mona appear, they are shocked and delighted that I am a deal less scary and Sara, who arrives later - a wonderful surprise - appears to have been drawn down here on false pretences.

And as I am drawn back into the world by my push me/ pull me duo of porters, I ride high on my bed delighted to fighting back.

The first fecking blow.

Take that!

Goodnight my loves.

Moannie x

My thoughts...

2011-11-04T18:19:00.000-07:00

I had thought it best to just say 'bye' - let you go.

Let you down easily - but the more I considered, the more I felt that those of you who cared - really cared in this odd universe, where total strangers become loved ones - deserved to be treated as such.

And so I shall be chronicling this new - last journey with you - the truth as it happens, with clarity and humour

- for even the gallows' humour is a necessity.

Moannie

(whilst Mum is in hospital I shall be posting her words here and recounting your words to her in turn. Saz)

...and then this happened...

2011-10-31T06:30:00.000-07:00

I thought I was OK, that I had got off Scot Free. But no, something is lurking on my xrays that may or may not be old scars.

Haven't been feeling too good lately.

CT scan yesterday so hopefully I can give whatever it is a name-and start to see it off.

Just to let you know why I've been quiet.

A SNAPSHOT.

2011-10-16T13:26:00.000-07:00

I have been having flashes of a an image, rather like some cheesy 'whodunnit' where the heroine with repressed memories sees fragmented scenes of a faceless man ...a tattooed arm...a shoe crunching on broken glass, you get the picture. Usually it is the genre of film where she goes up into the attic of the very old unlit house during a violent thunderstorm and we know the assailant is there, waiting and playing very creepy music to ease her way up the stairs.

My flashbacks are thankfully totally benign. They are of me, on a bicycle aged 16 1/2 on a lovely summer's day in 1950 ; visions brought on, I have no doubt, by the book I am reading at the moment by Frank McCourt 'Tis, the sequel to his masterpiece Angela's Ashes. The time line is familiar and his story of the pale sore-eyed semi-literate fighting against all odds to study, his longing to belong, to be able to discuss Dostoevsky with other students, to know how to talk to girls/anyone in authority shamed as he is by bad teeth and eyes like 'piss holes in the snow' -resonates with me.

So there I am riding the deserted Sunday lunchtime streets of The Bay; I know where I have been and where I am going.

I have just come from the house of a couple who are close to my current boyfriend Hugh. Hugh is an orphan and he is a fairground boxer. The Hudsons live in a fine detached house...a Grange or a Lodge with out- buildings, a gravel drive and a paddock behind the house. Mr. Hudson has two artificial legs...Mrs Hudson is the image of Googie Withers. They are superior beings. They have a library in their house, a small room of crammed shelving, a dark wood table and two leather chairs. He asks what would I like to drink and I catch Hugh's eye, he looks as non-plussed as I. I ask for a Port and Lemon because it is the only drink I have heard of...I do not know what Port is but with the lemon in there it should be drinkable. He serves it to me in a cocktail glass with a piece of fruit I do not recognise stuck to the rim. I don't know if I must eat the fruit before or after taking the drink. or must I not eat the fruit at all. Hugh is drinking water and the Hudson's something clear containing something on a stick but I watch them anyway. She takes the stick out of her drink and nibbles at the green berry, while he holds the stick out of the way while draining the drink, then he puts the berry into his mouth. No help to me. I sip my drink, it is delicious and the smell of the fruit begs me to put it in my mouth. It is pineapple though I do not know that, I just know that it is delicious and juicy and I want more. I drain my glass and eat the fruit. I am offered another and because I have no knowledge of how to behave I accept.

These are pre-lunch drinks; the Hudsons and Hugh are going on somewhere... sounds very exotic to me. I say goodbye and ride my bicycle very fast all the way home. I think that the Hudsons thought I was unsuitable for Hugh...He did have the most elegant manners for all that he was a Fairground boxer. Perhaps they adopted him. The sun was warm on my legs and the drink had worn off by the time I reached home. I never said a word to mum.

LAST WORDS ON THE SUBJECT: PROMISE

2011-10-09T03:07:00.000-07:00

SATURDAY : JP is downstairs with an English friend watching France-England in the World cup. England are getting clobbered and [bless him] JP's usual ecstatic yells for French victory are subdued- I even heard him tell the chap- 'Not to worry-Eengland always comes back in ze second 'alf.'

He has been up since six...walking a very startled but grateful dog, trying his best not to make a noise. I have not let him know that I have been awake since five.

Yesterday Dr. D. came for a home visit. Dear Dr. D.

How to describe him without him appearing to be in some way too odd? If you did not know him and were asked to give him a profession you would answer, an aesthete...theologian perhaps...a Quantum Physicist with bad social skills...very slightly autistic... not too great at the tactile business of Doctoring...very shy and extremely funny in a throwaway mumble aimed at his desk blotter. Wears tweed summer and winter. He has never let me down, misdiagnosed or rushed me when in full-self-diagnostic flow.

He was on holiday when I needed him last week and his Locum gave me all of four minutes, and a prescription for antibiotics. I faithfully took them, they made me drowsy, killed what small appetite I had, did nothing for the cough which combined with awful intercostal pain made breathing a challenge.

Dr.D did a number of things which did not involve touching, though he did listen to my chest and to me, that is his forte...he knows what to take on board and what to discard. He prescribed a limited dose of Steroids.

GERONIMO!

The man's a genius. I sent JP next door to fill the script and took the first one that day. Slept like a baby that night so that on Saturday morning I leapt out of bed, took in a lung full of air and felt no pain.
I cleaned the cat's Poo-palace and surrounding area. Vacuumed and dusted, showered, blow dried my hair, put on some slap and presented myself downstairs all before breakfast...and still felt capable of doing more.

SUNDAY: I'm on my third day of these wonderful recuperative s, four more to go and I dread to think how I shall manage without them-why I do believe they are having an effect on my brain power.

But then again... the smart bugger has probably given me placebo's - aware [as he is] of my utter belief in his powers and having diagnosed this last illness as 'all in the mind'.

Whatever...it has worked.

PS: 14th smokeless day.

What's up Doc?

2011-10-02T02:32:00.000-07:00

100 words: an exercise encouraged by Mr London Street.

I'm early, he’s late. Forty minutes; enough time to imagine a thousand ways to die.

The duty Doctor- he’s new to me, but he knows me from the screen.

‘What seems to be the trouble?’ I hate that question with the emphasis on ‘seems’...as if we love the surgery so much with it’s uncomfortable red leather seating and ‘whoop on a loop’ music we will make up sickness just to be here.

I don’t lie; I tell him I felt ill and chesty before I stopped smoking.

He listened; ‘breathe’ and here ‘breathe’ then ‘again’.

‘A bad chest infection.’

Reprieved!

DAY ONE: PLUS ONE

2011-09-27T02:19:00.000-07:00

Actually it is Plus one and a bit.

Saturday was a bad day. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I had managed to delay my first ciggie until after lunch, the idea being that if I delayed it a little every day I would end up living in a smokeless zone by week two.
But Saturday was a bad day and I fell right off the wagon. By the end of what was a stressful day I felt thoroughly ashamed and not a little nauseous.

Sunday: Today I became a non-smoker. It wasn't too hard because I had chest pains, nausea and a mouth like an ashtray. Sunday was Day One.

Monday: Today was a strange day; I thought about having a cigarette constantly, but now have the mind-set of a non-smoker [I shall be berating smokers next] and quickly found something else to do. This afternoon I fell asleep on the couch for 1:1/2 hours...so tired...bed at 9;30pm.

Tuesday: I can't imagine that I will give in now...and return to Day one: minus. I can only think that the reason I feel so sleepy is because I have not slept properly for a long time. My lungs no longer ache and coughing stopped. Fingers crossed. Actually feeling very proud of myself. Was it too easy? Will I not receive the kudos I deserve.?

Thanks to you all who wrote to encourage me...I would have felt a right Wally had I let you and myself down.

DAY ONE: Minus four.

2011-09-19T06:35:00.000-07:00

MONDAY, 19 SEPTEMBER 2011

I have been feeling odd; bit of a cough as expected after 64 years of the weed, light-headed yet achy behind the eyes nose and cheek-bones...classic allergy symptoms I've been telling myself when my thought process turns to the most obvious and, some would say, most deserved diagnosis.

But it is the sharp pain under my ribs [ diagnosed by me as intercostal cartilage strain or inflammation of:-] which is the one symptom, the final symptom which leads me to the decision that I Must Quit.

To that end I dug in the rubbish drawer for the Niquitin lozenges from my last attempt, only remembering the foulness of them on sucking the first one. I sauntered next door but two to the Chemist - our usual glorious Pharmacist - she of the ebony skin, silken dreadlocks and the whitest truest smile was on holiday and her Locum, a tall elderly taciturn man with a full head of white hair and moustache to rival that of Dick van Dyke's Dr. Sloan, suggested, when I asked if there had been a breakthrough and had someone thought to flavour the wretched things so that they were palatable, wandered around the aisles and suggested that 'perhaps if I bought some strong mints and sucked along with a lozenge...'

That was Day one: minus one. I lasted until 1pm. I tried keeping busy, but one has to sit down sometime and Milou didn't feel like giving up his afternoon cuddle on the sofa with mum, Doctors, Flog it and Countdown.
My count was six that day...which I felt was a credible effort.
Day One: minus two and three followed pretty much the same pattern except that I think I must be holding my breath or somehow controlling the strength of the breaths I do take because though I slept well enough the intercostal pain was worse this morning.

Took another stroll to the Chemist...tablets are mint flavoured but at £15. Hell's Bells. Forget it. I will quit, but slowly using will power. [famous last words?]

Just Googled Intercostal Cartilage and I think I have been 'Bracing'. Yup!

Life in the old girl yet.

Will no doubt be flagging Day one when it arrives.

I looked for a suitable illustration on Google Images but they are all too preachy, too worthy , patronising or just bonkers; as if we are not aware of the dangers involved in sucking up the tarry smoke. Then I thought of the very old song by Phil Harris:

Smoke smoke smoke that cigarette

Puff, puff puff and if you smoke yourself to death

Tell St. Peter at the Golden Gate, that you hate to make him wait

But you just gotta have another cigarette.

This song came out in 1939/40 and it was one of the songs in Mother's meagre collection [the B side wassomething about a card game: I remember: Now sitting right there in that there clan, there chanced to be a one-eyed man and he kep' starin' at me out the corner of his eye...an' ol' one eye would deal and then, it cost Bill another five or ten....]

So even then they knew. 1]that nicotine is addictive and 2] It was/is harmful.

BUS PASS HEAVEN / HELL

2011-09-09T06:37:00.000-07:00

The other day I took a bus into the Bay. It was the first bus I'd been on since we bought the car so, maybe it has been at least ten years since we were without transport. Even then we would eschew public transport, preferring to walk to the end of the road and then down the Downs along the seafront and into town that way. Of course we were both ten years younger then and the short mile was nothing to us [although laden with shopping we would always taxi back up the hill]

Now the car is gone; not too lamented when we count the money saved and bask in eco. glory of a little less pollution,but there are times when we have to go to town and this was one of them. I couldn't ask NOAOson, who takes us to our weekly big shop out of town as his plate was overflowing at the time and I needed to browse the Charity shops-not a necessary journey but I needed my fix.

So there I was, waiting for the 10-10 bus. It was late and I was reassured to see there was another elderly woman waiting with me.
A small single decker arrived and I followed the woman inside, flashing my bus pass at the driver. He tutted, took the card and shoved it upside down over the thingummy plate and I moved inside and wedged myself in the only free seat on the sideways bench next to a very fat, beautifully made up lady of an age between 18 and 80.

The air was redolent of talcum powder, Ralgex, Lavender water, Christmas gifts of Givenchy Gentleman, my own [thankfully liberally applied ] Mitsouko, and a faint but definite whiff of Eau de Urine.

From my sideways bench I could see down the bus and every seat was occupied by a Senior Citizen with heads bearing every shade of hair from snow white to iron grey, with some bluish and pinky horrors to season the pot. But the most surprising thing-used as I was to the silence of a London bus, where the journey is a trial to be undertaken with as much speed and anonymity as possible lest one is made visible to the drunk, noisy and potentially violent-here there was a raucous cacophony of sound composed of conversations carried across the aisle, much laughter, and in one instance, singing by two couples along the back seat.

Snatches of speech:

'She didn't!'
'She bloody did.'

'I said to 'im, if you want it you can lug it upstairs.'
'My, Jim had one of them.'
'Was it worth it?'
'Nah! Could have done it meself.' The mind boggles.

'My boy's coming down this weekend.'
'That's nice.'
'He's got a Bentley.'
'If I 'ad a Bentley I'd sell it.'
'Well he's got two.'

'Donald wanted a chop but at those prices I said it's mince or nothing.'

I alighted at the top of the High Street, thanking the surly driver who grunted and swished the door shut before I'd hit the pavement.

Now I'm trying to decide on a collective noun for a clutch of OAP's-and as it includes myself it has to be a good one, flatteringly descriptive of our Joi de vivre.

How about: A Survival of Seniors:

ONE AND TWO HALVES

2011-09-06T04:44:00.000-07:00

One and two halves a reprint from 2009

by Moannie

We were three, though for a long time, it was just Mick, my older half-brother and me.

I was Pollyanna [well, Mollyanne a] always smiling, not a great thinker, a follower, his shadow. He could make the sounds of instruments with his mouth; drums of all types, a flute a Saxophone. I sang 'Money is the root of all evil' and he played along, all jazzy, like the music we'd only recently discovered. He was wound tight, St. Edith's had done that to him. He kept secrets the way he kept his sweets in their paper bag, all screwed up in his pocket so that he had to suck the paper off. Never shared. I would eat my weekly twopenny worth of Bulls-eyes, or Humbugs or toffees in one go, stuffing my cheeks and sussing up the streaming saliva, then beg 'G'us one,' but he never would.

After St. Edith's it was just him and me...playing Dick Barton:Special Agent in the hidey hole under the eaves, or we'd play shops with the meagre contents of mum's kitchen, or Jazz bands. We'd sprawl on mum's divan bed with the tapestry cover of a jungle scene with lions and tigers and he'd be Tarzan to my Jane, or we'd play mum's few records over and over and he would copy the instruments until I could not tell if it was the record or him playing the snare drum or the trumpet. When Harry was there, before mum married him, we would leave the house and run, always run - to the park, or to the bridge over the railway where we would gaze in fascination as the snorting black and shiny monsters chuntered along the tracks.

He grew up to be tight-lipped, quick to quip, holding nothing dear. If St. Edith's was the cause, he never told me...he grew a moustache and a goatee beard, and he grew away from me. He wanted no ties of love, or emotion, not even for his mother who died with just me there, holding her hand. He came to her funeral, then left. We have not met since then, thirty years ago.

When Tony was born I was ten and Mick twelve. I fell in love instantly. At first I was forbidden to go near him, then gradually I became useful. He was the Prince-the chosen one, the wartime baby who needed the butter and the orange juice, eggs and milk and sweets [candy], all rationed, but he blossomed and thrived even though his baby teeth grew out in blackened and decayed stumps he was still beautiful and I adored him, which was just as well as he became my shadow as soon as he could walk. Mick dropped me like a hot potato and it was then Tony and me.

But there was something in him that curdled, like milk left out in the sun, and the loving brother grew up and became someone else, self-absorbed, a braggart, an opinionated - the French have the perfect word which translates as near as dammit to- a...hole.

When mum was dying I called him-he turned over and went back to sleep.

We tried, many times to get back to something resembling family, but it was false and finally failed and it has been many years now since there was any contact.

There are many and valid reasons why they became what they are-and why I am who I am. Mick never knew his father, adored his mother and watched her abandon us then make a disastrous marriage and cling to it, even though we, the reasons why she married were anathema to the man and we hated him. He escaped through National Service in Suez and never went back home to live. Tony was wanted and loved and spoiled, but was born of Harry's gene pool. He loved his father, had no reason not to, but he was left alone with mum when I left home at eighteen and she began her long fight with Multiple Sclerosis and he despised her as weak.

I had no spine, no backbone, I wanted the fairy story, the loving father and mother, the laughing playing siblings, the gingerbread house, the happy ending.
I do not miss my half-brothers-they only ever made me unhappy, bringing JP to anger and me to agonise over each visit.

And in the end I made my own fairy tale.

THE PRUNE ONE

2011-08-26T09:50:00.000-07:00

An old photograph

The other day, as we were finishing our lunch, he looked up and asked me 'Do you remember where we were when we had our first argument?'

I was instantly transported back to a Sunday afternoon in1955 and Leicester Square, London. I felt my flesh taut on my bones, brushed my hands through my Hiltone blonded Doris Day DA and warmed to the September sun on my face. The bench is warm too where we are sitting as we wait for the afternoon showing of a film we both wanted to see and heard the voices and the light Sunday traffic as a distant hum.

We've been 'going out' for a few months; though it really added up to perhaps less than fifteen of my days off from the Hospital. By the time I had paid for essentials there was little left of my salary for trips home and I seemed to be forever trapped in debt-by the time I had repaid the Paper man for the cigarettes he 'put on tick' for me and the odd half-crown borrowed from someone to replace the holey black nylons I managed to get through as if they were made of cobwebs- I usually only had enough for one trip to Dreamland Ballroom and the first packet of cigs.

I cannot remember if we had three separate trips to London together, or if the 'argument' occurred on the same day that we had to run from Soho, all the way down Regent Street looking for a loo, with me in agony, bursting my bladder; not a romantic scenario at the time. Or was it also the day that we ate at a Chinese restaurant in Soho where I caught the Dysentery that would see me interred in a Hospital for infectious diseases for three months? [The restaurant was closed by the Health authorities shortly after our visit]

Kimo sabe, as we say in this house [this was either a phrase used by the Lone Rangers companion, or the actual name of the Lone Rangers companion] What it means chez nous is 'who can say?'
The argument began as a gentle discussion of fruit,of peaches, which were only just becoming available in Britain as our economy expanded. JP was saying how plentiful they were in the south of France. I said that I loved plums, the large dark juicy Victoria, and pointed out a couple seated next to us who were sharing a bag of them.

'Oh, you mean, Prunes!'
'No, prunes are dried plums.'
'Non, they are pruneaux '
'I think you mean prunus which is the generic term for plums, damsons, greengages etc.,'
'Eh?'

I tend to forget that his English is pretty basic; when we first got together he had: yes and no, I'm hungry and, I love you.

'What do you call those round sweet greeny yellow fruits?' I asked.
'Rene Claude.'
'Well we call it a Greengage and it too is a member of the family Prunus.'
'No, a pruneau is what you call a plum and what we call a PRUNE!'

Now I'm getting a bit het up. I stand up and I'm afraid I took a stance, very Calamity Jane with hands on hips.

'Well, here in ENGLAND a prune is a dried up wrinkled PLUM.'
'And in FRANCE it is a PRUNEAU!'

I can't believe we are shouting, or why. He is standing now and facing me, mouth tight and eyes blazing. I walk away from him to the edge of the square and look back and see that he is walking in the other direction. I slow down and walk around the edge of the square tears falling as my anger dissipates. He has the train tickets and the money for the cinema. I hate him, arrogant French boy. Head down I bump into him.

'Prune,' he says.
'Plums' say I.
And he holds me and kisses me and all is well with the world.

'Oh yes,' I say. 'I remember it well. And a plum is a plum and a prune.'

SO HAPPY TO BE BACK

2011-08-20T07:43:00.000-07:00

I don't think anyone has missed me, and that is a bit, well, sad really. I know I am not that prolific but it has been 20 days since my last post I had thought to see at least one or two...'Moannie where are you' [s].

The saga began when I finally got truly mad at Hayhohell and cancelled my contract with them, and, at the same time cancelled BT who have done nothing wrong, but we decided to put all our eggs into the basket at Sky, thus saving a bundle [eventually, we hope] This all happened on the 1st of this month and I, in my blissful ignorance believed it would all be fixed and finished by the eighth.
Hayhohell however lived up to its name and reputation and refused to give me my mac code so that Sky has made me wait till the 18th to do whatever magic they had to do to get me connected. The parcel arrived with all the bits and pieces I needed to get it done but...and there's the rub, I didn't have the nerve. Today the wonderful Debs and Gary came by and he fixed it for me and now I am back and it is as if I had never been away.

Well it is for you 'cos you didn't miss me.

Twenty days of twitching, of irritability; of dusting and weeding, cleaning in corners that have not seen a duster since we moved here seventeen years ago.I have walked and wormed and weeded until dog and garden have yelled 'uncle'. I've begun baking, even using yeast to great effect [pizza dough] and disaster [Chelsea Buns] and brought out my Encyclopaedia Gastronomic to produce some great meals much to the approbation of JP. I've dillied and dallied and a couple of times lost my way home and the time CREPT BY.

I could have used that time to my advantage, storing up posts in word, but nothing happened when faced with that blank white page; there is something about this small rectangle which gets my creative juices flowing.
Hayhohell still showed me the little place where my emails are stored but it mocked me, creeping up from 6-to-155 and of course I could not access them. It has been awful.

And now that I am back, in touch with the world and my friends and I can ask Google questions [I have a list] it feels good.
Don't let me down Sky, you have my on-line life in your hands.

HELLO WORLD!

ANOTHER PIECE OF THE PUZZLE

2011-07-29T04:17:00.000-07:00

Another piece in the puzzle.

I have used that title intentionally, because I am beginning to think that these posts, dedicated to my past are bits of the jigsaw that, completed, and read in the correct sequence [I purposefully publish out of order] will help me to understand why I am me.

Gretel S. [Mutti] really deserves a chapter all her own in my story. Not just because she was an extraordinary woman, which she was, but because of the effect she had on my life.

Born in Holland in I9II Mutti moved with her parents to Germany when she was eleven. I am not sure exactly when she moved back to Holland but it was there she married an Englishman, Norman S, and had a daughter, Marjorie. The marriage broke up, Germany invaded Poland breaking their treaty with Great Britain and war was declared. Wrapping two Persian rugs around her middle and with only what she could carry, Mutti brought her eight year old daughter to England as the Germans marched into Holland. She arrived when the country was in turmoil.

Unprepared for a war that was inevitable - thanks to the dithering of Neville Chamberlain the Prime Minister of the period, men were hurriedly conscripted and trained, factories converted from peacetime products to producing uniforms, guns and ammunition, tanks, planes and field kitchens. The powers that be, requisitioned schools, houses and land as headquarters, living accommodation, training bases, and stores. Khaki, pale blue, and navy blue uniforms now predominated and the accents of all nations could be heard in the towns. Sign posts and place names were removed from roads, sticky paper strips criss-crossed windows in trains and blackout curtains in every home cut out any chink of light that might lead an enemy bomber to its target.
Rationing began; gas masks were distributed and were obliged to be carried at all times. Municipal parks were dug up and planted with vegetables, and Barrage Balloons looking like floating elephants protected important sites. Lorries collected iron railings and garden gates to be turned into shells for bombs and bullets and the Black Market was born.
After living for a while with her estranged husband Mutti moved to Bedford to be near her only brother Paul, who was a Trades Union leader.

Mutti was a sturdy five foot nothing of energy, with the face of a mischievous but rather plain, elf. If there was something she wanted or needed she would find a way to get it. She would badger people into submission using a mixture of coercion, persuasion and moral blackmail. She sold her rugs and some jewellery and bought a large run down house and proceeded to beg or borrow the means to repair and paint it. When it suited her she would play the poor refugee who had escaped Hitler by a whisker.
She had the idea of creating a housing billet where officers could rest and relax; near enough to London to commute to their offices, yet far enough away to avoid the nightly bombardment. Having conceived the idea she followed it through by shaming those who were doing nothing, to help her in her plan. Beds and bedding were donated; shops were scoured for the necessary equipment for her kitchen and for all the other essentials.
Mutti knew her antiques and was not above trading the food her officer’s food stamps brought her, for more rugs, fancy tables even object d’arts. Eventually she had room for eight officers and her fame as a cook ensured that the waiting list for places grew and the numbers stayed constant. She knew how to make a little go a long way. Cream was a thing of the past and butter rationed so she would take the cream from the top of each bottle of milk, letting it stand for a while before draining off any liquid then whipping the cream to top her coffee or her fancy puddings. Her soups were legendary; made from a stock pot that was always on the go. It began with a chicken carcass or meat bones with onions, celery and bay leaf and then took all the leftovers that came back from the vegetable dishes. Nothing went to waste, ever. She bought day old bread and stale sponges for half price. The bread was held under hot water for a second then baked in a hot oven until it was as crisp and fresh as new baked. The sponges were soaked in sherry and made the base for sherry trifle. She gave her men Goulash and Blinis, bashed tough steak into submission, tied pieces into sausage shapes and pressure cooked it in rich gravy until it melted in the mouth, salted runner beans in the summer glut for winter delight and made her own Sauerkraut. In a time of restrictions, her officers ate very well.

She did not waste money on sending soiled washing to a laundry. Monday was washday and beds were changed to crisp fresh linen and she would still be ironing at eleven in the evening. She had one particular and peculiar quirk which she credited for her boundless energy. Every afternoon after lunch she would retreat to her bedroom, remove her shoes, climb on the bed and cover herself with a rug. She would close her eyes and sleep for precisely ten minutes and wake refreshed. Wherever she was in the world [and I have witnessed this in London and New York and heard of her search for a bed or bench in Franco’s Palace in Madrid] she would enter a hotel lobby, remove her shoes, lie back on a couch, close her eyes and sleep for the required ten minutes. No one disturbed her. By the time hotel staff decided to rouse her, her ten minutes were over and she was up, shoes on, shopping bags retrieved and on her way.

Her fame spread and her bank balance grew. She grew close to one of the officers, Reginald Floyd, a tall buffoon of a man who could see at once that her dragooning character was a perfect foil for his own laid back laziness. Marjorie went to Bedford Girls High School and became a perfect English rose.

Sometime in the late forties Mutti bought a large rundown hotel in The Bay, and with her usual formidable energy and courage turned it, in double quick time, into a convalescent home. She took patients from all over Kent for two weeks of convalescent care and some of her very good cooking; with the aid of a regular turnover of German girls, and a number of her ‘stray lambs’; girls like me who needed tender loving care. Reginald or Flukenbush as she called him drove her around in his large black Packard, to the station, to the Wholesalers or to the Bridge Club where they played every Thursday evening. For the rest of the time he played solitaire in their sitting room, changed the occasional light bulb or parked outside the Pier and waited for the showgirls to exit from the Summer Show.

I953 and I enter her world.
I was given a card to take to the Home for an interview with the owner, Mrs Gretel S. who needed a cleaner and general dogsbody. I had been a week without money and I was very hungry. Mutti looked me over with her small twinkling grey eyes, saw with her amazing antennae that I was a waif in distress and hired me on the spot. ‘Time for lunch, my dear’ she said in her comic Dutch/German accent. ‘Come and join us’. It was stew, not any old English stew with gobs of fat floating on thin tasteless liquid; but Mutti’s stew. Succulent meat, bite tender vegetables and soft fluffy dumplings floating on rich thick gravy. I ate three bowls, an act that became part of the folklore of the Home.

I worked from Monday to Friday with Mrs.Robinson- a long term member of Mutti’s staff - I stripped and remade beds, vacuumed carpets and swept the oak-stained and polished floorboards. We dusted and polished furniture, cleaned windows and bathrooms, and folded linen. If all that was done Mutti would find me another job. Dampening and rolling pillowcases, sheets, table cloths, shirts and blouses ready for the iron. Or she would have me stringing runner beans, shredding cabbage or simply stirring a pot. Mrs. Robinson, [Robbie] knew better than to show her face. If her work was done she would hide herself in an upstairs room and smoke another of her endless cigarettes. I however was in some kind of heaven.

The work, though never-ending, was not hard and everyone was pleasant. Mutti’s assistant, Erna, a tall grim looking German woman was a bit severe but Mutti herself more than made up for her. We had coffee at eleven around the big kitchen table. For the first time in my life I tasted proper roasted coffee and with Mutti’s famous ‘milk top cream’ it was sublime. There would be cake, almond slices, or biscuits and the conversation would be mostly in German. I was told that after a while there would be no translation and I would soon pick up enough of the language to follow what was being said. Sometimes we would sing. Around that table, with our coffee and cakes, one of the girls would hum something and another would pick it up. I learned to sing Das wonden ist dast Muller’s luste [probably not quite right but that is the phonetic spelling] A Roundelay, you know, where one singer starts and the next begins midway, then the third and so-on. The first time it happened it made me cry. I couldn’t believe such happiness existed. I sang all the time and no-one told me to stop. At the top of the house in the attics I would sing 'Oh Mien Papa' from Madam Butterfly, and hit the top note [just]. I was almost delirious with happiness. At the end of the first week I bought a bottle of Hiltone bleach and became a blonde and would remain one for the next eighteen years with a few hiccups along the way. After three weeks I moved into one of the attics at the top of the house and, at eighteen and a half I began to venture into what today would be known as teenager territory.

Marjorie was three years older than I. At first she was distant. I was just another of her mother's stray cats and I think she would have loved to have Mutti's attention to herself, but little by little we became closer until we were inseparable-at least when she was home from the hospital where she was in her third year of nursing training.

Because of Mutti and Marjorie I would begin my own nursing training within a year.

Because of Mutti I became a good cook, learned to appreciate music and gained knowledge of antiques, spoke German and a little Dutch and discovered that caring comes in all shapes and sizes and that by 'paying it forward' can be endless.

YOU ARE MOST WELCOME, FRANCIS, ALBERT.

2011-07-18T08:47:00.000-07:00

Mister London Street is a natural born writer. His work seems effortless, his caricatures as sharp as razor-blades and his insights illuminate the human condition. No-one can take the mundane and turn it into magic the way he does. I tell you this as a preamble to this next post because, although I have given up aspiring to his degree of perfection, he does often inspire me with a subject, and this one was dislodged from my porridge of a brain by Absent minded a post about his recurring Daydreams.

As a child, a young child my recurring daydream centered around the house of Rupert Bear [the only books to which I had access] His house was my house. I warmed myself at his hearth, ate at his table with my mother, my brother and a new father. And my father had a 'bear' look about him. His hair was the colour of Rupert's fur and he had a soft beard of the same hue. He was big, cuddly, bear like and I would sit on his knee sometimes. We would have Rupert Bear type adventures and at night he would read me to sleep. These daydreams stopped when mother met Harry.

The next, and last recurring daydream began shortly after we bought The Meadow of Pears [I have given the English translation because I STILL cannot find the accent aigu] our Lavender Farm in the Alpes des Haut Provence. A large rambling Mas of pale stone set on a promontory 11km from Sisteron.

It was 1972 and this was taken as our car rounded the corner and I got my first glimpse of our new holiday home with it's eleven hectares of ancient Lavender. For twelve years we spent every holiday - Easter, Christmas and the long summer break here in this lovely setting. It is isolated from the tiny village way above us, a few houses, nothing special-a goatherd who ran his flock over our land, farm workers, one holiday home; perhaps three vehicles a day going up or down.

Francis Albert had retired...and I missed him. I was more than a fan, short for fanatic...I did not want to be Mrs. Sinatra, had no fantasies that we would meet and that he would fall in love and whisk me away from my beloved JP, I wanted to be the one he would call when he was down; that was my original daydream. Then, lounging in the courtyard with the doors to the house open and his music pouring out on the rare occasions that I was alone-they expanded. We met accidently.[I never could work out how] He was not well and was very unhappy. We invited him to the farm should he need a bolt hole. The unfinished upper half of the building which we had always meant to turn into a suite-was made over for him and one day he arrived, no fanfare, no entourage, just him in a hire car. Sometimes I imagined that he wanted to be alone and I prepared meals for him and took them to his room-or that he came to our table and ate my food with gusto. I daydreamed that we would talk for hours, about family, regrets, gossip sometimes. Then he would leave as easily as he had arrived .
These daydreams came, just once in while, each one more elaborate, down to the ingredients of each meal, the contents of each conversation. Sometimes it was just a phone call to say 'hello, how are you', or a card for a celebration. We were his big secret and he was ours..

They daydreams stopped when he married again and he was happy.

We saw him once, much later at The Royal Albert Hall. Number one and only son bought tickets for us to see the Show with Sammy Davis and Liza Minneli. They opened the show and were both brilliant but when Francis Albert's figure entered I stood up, cheering and whooping 'I love you Frankie' and did not care that he was two millimetres high [this was before big screens] It was enough that I was in the same room with him.

Now I don't daydream about what might have been, I reminisce.

AUSTEN-ITUS HAS STRUCK AGAIN

2011-07-12T09:42:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers. I am suffering from my annual case of Austen-itus. It affects me every year at about the same time causing me to speak slowly and distinctly, avoiding contractions, split infinitives or slang expressions. I find, at these times that my back is held straighter, my hair tidier and my smile shows less teeth and is bestowed upon all and sundry, even upon those who look at me oddly.
I tend not to shout or say 'what?' and I call my husband Mr.F...e and try very hard not to respond with my usual profanities when he gets on my w.... joshes me.
My dog tends to regard me quizzically when I do not raise my voice to him as he attempts to water my plants, and 'Bad Boy' in a softer, more genteel tone does not stop him chasing fledglings.

This malady is brought on by repeat showings of most of Miss Austen's works beginning with the definitive film of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle followed by Emma and then Persuasion and then last night the dreadful version of P&P with Kiera Knightly only rescued by the 'I love, love, love you' of Mister Darcy.

Each year this malady manifests itself with the symptoms I have listed here, but, thankfully it lasts but a few days...or even hours if the Master requests I revert before he is obliged to shut me in my room to recover. Already I can feel a swear word coming on...the strain is too much. And of course, Miss Austen did not smoke, did she?

Where are they now?

2011-07-07T08:15:00.000-07:00

[all these pictures enlarge with a click]

While it may be true that once I seemed to know everyone in my town, from the local Beach Photographer [oops! there's another story] or the one time headmistress, later 'crazy' woman, her matted hair pushed under a tea cosy, who shook her walking stick at any school-aged girl and shouted 'Get back to class, now!' -to the woman who sat in a small windowed cubicle mending nylons - that familiarity ended years ago as the town grew and it's population flourished.
Now, up here in the village-which is truly a small finger of the Bay, I believe I can say we are back where we started..

The Butcher's shop is next door but one to our right and they know my name, and JP's. They know when I have family over for Sunday lunch as we discuss the merits and price of each joint. Rob knew when I had my hip operation and I know where he is taking his family on his days off. Thanks to my requests he now sells Quail and wild rabbit, Pheasant and Venison.

To our left is our Dentist, Stavros, who has become a dear friend and not only because he has saved my mouth from a fate, for me, worse than death or taxes; filling in the Cumberland Gap that kept my mouth closed for a month, but because he really is a sweet, funny and generous gentleman. Next to his surgery is the Chemist, that JP keeps afloat with his huge monthly prescription. I am commanded by the Chemist to fetch her should JP have another hypo, and as Stavros has demanded the same thing, and I know they mean it-I shall pour glucose into his mouth and run to them...well, hobble.

Opposite is a Funeral parlour. JP swears the boss sizes him up every time their paths cross, and next to their 'shop window' which contains a large coloured photograph of two fine black Shires pulling a black and gold hearse/carriage is a TV repair shop, though lord knows how it can make a living with electrical goods so cheaply available in Superstores. The owner's name is Chris, but to us he is Matt- for his extraordinary likeness to the late, great Matt Monroe.

A small break for the Village Hall and a Tea Shop then another short row of two shops, a Co-op and a Londis, and both, happily for their customers, vying for our custom for what is basically the same stock.

To our right we have a Video store, two hairdressers, a Florist, 2 Charity Shops, pet store and a Garage. All in all we are pretty well catered for.

When what is now our sitting-room was a shop, an ill-fated project we began in the certainty that we were too young to retire and because it seemed like a good idea at the time - I would sit near the register by the window, wrapped in a poncho and sketch passers-by.

Looking for something totally different- [actually some flower paintings I had done ages ago so that I could prove a point to JP. He had bought me a huge bunch of trumpet Lily s and suggested that I paint them - I told him that I could not paint flowers-he said 'rubbish'...end of explanation.] - I found these sketches that I did at the time, Good Grief! JP just reminded me that was all of fifteen years ago. Well, the middle-aged must be old, and the kids, adults. All caught in a brief moment in time.

Un-bloody-believable

2011-06-28T09:56:00.000-07:00

Sorry folks, but steam is coming out of my ears.

My provider is AOL and I have not been happy with them for some time, in fact, as soon as my contract with them is up I shall be switching PDQ. The last time Sazzie was here she tried to get us the whole package from Sky, I think [I know...but as long as I can remember the REALLY important things...] but AOL said no, the penalty for breaking the contract would be quite a lot, so she fixed our Sky package and we decided to wait, till September I think [she is down in four weeks so I think we might cut our losses then].

For the past few days, after logging on to AOL for my mail - the only thing I use it for now since Sazzie fixed me up with a Google thingey - it has been presenting me with a blank box each time I try to log off. It is the usual box with 'Are you sure you want to log off?' at the top, but the 'close' button is not there. Aware of my predilection for tying to solve my own problems with disastrous results I went on to what I believed to be AOL's problem solving website. Typed into the box provided that 'you are showing me a log off box which is blank and I am having to close down my system each time'...or words to that effect.
Up came another site with a lot of reassuring signs, like 'Here to Help' '14 years experience' '11324 satisfied customers' and 'write your question here' So I did.

Up came another box- 'I can answer your question: how much are you prepared to pay...£28 ?'

Excuse me?
I'm looking everywhere for the 'Piss off' button, or another box where I might vent my spleen into but up came another box.

'Are you hesitating?'

No matey, I'm switching you off.

So...I'm guessing that wasn't AOL
One good thing...when I lost him I lost AOL as well.

1957 AND ALL THAT.

2011-06-25T02:29:00.000-07:00

A re-post, may I be forgiven. The muse [such as she was] has left me.

by Moannie

Ah! Look at the love light in her eyes, the jaunty stance of the guy who knows he's cute, and the knowing smile on the face of Senor Gordillo who is in on the joke.

Barcelona, 1957, one of the golden years for me. I was 22 , on holiday in an exotic location abroad, staying with my boyfriend at his lodgings in the apartment of middle aged, spinster sisters Conchita and Laura, neither of whom approved of my presence. The sisters only ever rented rooms to men, students, like JP, or travelling salesmen like Senor Gordillo. I was only tolerated because JP's tenancy was to be long term and his rent provided a good income.

My room was next to JP's and was smaller, his had an anti room where we ate our meals under the watchful eyes of the sisters who observered us from the kitchen at the end of a long corridor and heaven forbid that the door swung closed; Conchita, the head guard dog would bustle along carrying a dish, replenish our plates and prop the door open again.

Incredibly, they appeared oblivious to the fact that our rooms were connected by a balcony which ran the length of the building-either that or they had put us on our honour, well not I, for at that time I did not speak Spanish and was a very 'good girl' of the fifties - but probably JP, and he would have had no scruples, for, though Catholic, he had lapsed to such a degree that it was only superstition which led him to light candles for the dead and anyway, he always chose his battles well.

On one occasion, when washing out undies, I did JP's as well, and the sisters threw a tantrum which involved much shaking of fists on the part of Conchita and apron throwing over the head of Laura as Conchita shouted that I was taking good money out of their pockets and that they wanted me gone, adding that I was a Scarlet Woman and they knew what we were doing at night. We left them to it and went to the Bullfights, staying out till late in the evening hoping they would have had time to cool down. They were both still up, and docile, even apologetic. Senor Gordillo had told then that their fears were groundless, he was a light sleeper and could vouch for my purity. He could of course, because we had been very good.

But then we weren't.

Hence the smug expression on Senor Gordillo's face.

I MEET A FELLOW BLOGGER

2011-06-18T06:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I met a fellow Blogger, the first one ever and it was lovely and strange and very very quick.

It began with an email from Libby at D'scribes. She was in Whitstable for a couple of days and could we meet? I phoned the telephone number provided and we arranged that she would come over in the afternoon, after one, when lunch plates would be cleared and Milou walked and I would be primped and ready.

Then Stavros came in for lunch and we had an hilarious noisy hour of he an JP topping each other's jokes and Stavros revelling in our crusty bread and Camembert and drinking three cups of coffee.

2pm and he had to leave, luckily his surgery is next door but one so he was able to linger until the very last minute. We all got up from the table and then Milou began barking, looking towards the front door where the letter box was rattling. JP got there first and took a parcel and cards from the Postie who was trying to push the lot into the slot. Bit of a panic as Milou was very near the exit so I shut him inside then saw a woman standing next to the Postman. A quick impression of slenderness, dark hair, sweet smile, red umbrella, linen tunic and I rushed to hug her and draw her inside.

She began by saying that she wasn't staying, that her sister was in the car and she just needed to put a face to the Blog, as it were. But JP and Stavros were still at the front door talking and Milou was nowhere to be seen and I panicked, thinking he had somehow got out in the melee , so I dashed around calling him, finding him locked outside the back door. He rushed into the room and welcomed Libby like a long lost friend. Poor thing, must have thought she had entered a mad house.

We chatted, briefly, in telegraph ese. Our Blogs, how we felt about it, how often she travelled down from the Midlands, then she had to go.

I thought, afterwards, how clever of her. Don't you think so? Meeting Blog pals could be scary. We show a persona that may or may not be a true reflection of who we really are. I mean I could be a ninety year old sex fiend or a nineteen year-old religious nut. Or we could take an instant dislike to each other and she would have been stuck, drinking undrinkable coffee until she could politely leave, and then it would put her off for ever making the attempt at another meeting with another Blogger.

Now as far as I am concerned she was a delightful lady and I am sure we will get on well the next time we meet, and hopefully JP Milou and I made a good impression in the few mad minutes she was here.
I do hope so.

WHY AM I SO GOB-SMACKED?

2011-06-16T09:21:00.000-07:00

I was in bed on Monday evening at 11pm, listening to Michael Parkinson, that dapper old guy of Chat Show fame who, I had believed, had faded into limbo and thence to move to Commercials selling us oldies a tiny Insurance [just enough to cover our funeral expenses, removing one more problem from our nearest and dearest in their hour of sorrow].

I've always had a soft spot for our Michael; he clung to his Yorkshire accent, allowed his full head of hair to silver and then turn white, never gained an ounce of weight - and, though his twinkling eyes promised a flirt, seems always to have remained true to his Mary. But mainly it was because my music was his music- the big Band Sound and every singer who ever sung the American Songbook. His knowledge is encyclopaedic [thank the Lord and Google for spell check] and his passion unabated.

For years and years he hosted a Sunday afternoon show and BBC 2 and it was a must for me. Then the heads of 'Knowing what is good for us' gave his show to another and the Big Bands gave way to pop and I gave up.

The only time I see him now is when he is promising a free gift for 'Cover' [only a few quid a month and, after two years all funeral costs will be paid.] Shame really; for this man who had them all on his Saturday night show-most of his heroes from Sammy Davis to Mohammed Ali, Bette Midler to Lauren Bacall. then fade out.
But, without my noticing he is back, from eleven to midnight every Monday evening and I am ecstatic, because now I can have my music twice a week. David Jacobs, who must be knocking ninety is on on Sunday evenings eleven to midnight and he too plays my kind of music.

So, as I was saying, there I was, listening to Michael, and he had already pleased me with the Earl, the Duke and the Guvner, with Ella and Peggy and the Count, when, almost at the end played two 'records' of the great Buddy Greco. This man has it all as far as I'm concerned, not that my love for Francis Albert is diminished; he is the voice, and Sammy was the all round song and dance man. Tony Bennet still scares me; will he get that impossible high note? [and he always does, even now] but to me Buddy Greco had a dangerous edge. He looked dangerous with that boxers face; he played piano with and for the best and he sang all over the place but always came home in time and on note.

'You might be interested to know' said Michael, at the end of the second record of Buddy simply playing jazz piano, '...that Buddy is now in his late eighties, still plays and still sings in Gigs around his home. And,I bet you never thought he would be living here in England, in Kent...' At this point I sat up in bed almost losing my earphones. 'in W......on sea.'

Oh my word! The great marvellous Buddy Greco lives ten miles up the coast from me! Not in Hollywood or Carmel or Las Vegas or New York, but in a tiny seaside town on the Kent coast. And he still performs.

I switched off my radio and closed my eyes, picturing myself at one of his concerts and, with the power of my very vivid imagination saw the room, the piano and the man himself, unchanged, still excitingly dangerous [to me he was, though probably is and has always been a pussy cat] I saw all the white heads in the audience, all the Veet smooth chins, and went to sleep to him playing and singing just to me.

It's just a phase, I'll grow out of it.

2011-06-10T09:45:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking rather a lot lately on the subject of growing old. It happens to all of us who have been spared the alternative-and is as inevitable as the turning of the earth, and taxes. If anyone asks how it feels I usually manage to smile brightly and say that it feels OK, quite natural, and just throw in a pseudo joke about 'could do without the creaky joints' or 'the important things are still working.' But lately, as bloody arthritis catches me out when I'm least expecting it; when I stride out confidently with Milou and hobble home and JP says 'That's it, I'll take him in future.' Or when I think of something to write here or simply to add another item to my grocery list-and in the time it takes me to find pen and paper I have forgotten it; that is when I start to wonder if I have reached the apogee and am beginning the quick slide down.

I can write this, know what I want to say and can say it. I'm a whiz at Code word puzzles, Scrabble, Rummy and Belote; I love a good argument as long as you let me speak [before I lose the thread] have a trillion recipes in my head, as well as the lyrics to any song written between the 1930's and the 1960's. But...

I'm so nostalgic for the old me. The me who ran rather than walked, who danced at the first tarradiddle and did not stop until the musicians were packing away their instruments. I remember how it felt to feel alive, almost able to follow the path of my blood pumping in my veins and laughing out loud at the sheer joy of being young and alive. That arrow dart of desire, bidden or unbidden, and it's promise. The expectations for a better tomorrow and the fulfilment of long laid plans.

NOAOson asked me, the other day, prefacing the question with...'Not meaning you or Dad..' I think it was the Tesco story that triggered the query although he was vehement that that was not the case[ can't really blame him if it was]

NOAOson: 'Mum, how do you know, if you are...when...um...well not quite...um?

Me: Hazelmere? [our family speak for Alzheimers ]

NOAOson: Well yes. If you had it you would hardly be able to diagnose yourself, would you? Well not you.

Me: It is a perfectly valid question and reminds me of something I read ages ago. 'It doesn't mean you have to worry if you forget where you put the car keys, only if you forget what the car keys are for.'

And so far I can still remember, just as well as I can remember the young, vibrant me.

But don't worry my friends...this is just a passing phase, and I shall grow out of it.

Green thumb? Hardly! [for Jackie]

2011-06-02T08:11:00.000-07:00

I'm not a gardener. I think I am a Garden Enabler. I only know the common names of plants, some plants, and even that is a hit or miss fact. I once had an acquaintance for whom a Rubber Plant was a ficus, as in 'My Ficus Elastica 'Decora' is giving me cause for concern, or 'My Antirrhinums are taking over the border' or, 'My new borders will be a mix of Phacelia Campanuloria, Gypsophilia elegans and Godetias.' [Thanks to: The Complete Guide to Successful Gardening: Published by Samson and Low 1978] She was a gardening snob and I never liked her, but let's not speak ill of the long departed.

The basic layout of my gardens,three small interlocking spaces, was laid out before we arrived, all I have done is introduce lots of compost, bulbs of all shapes and sizes buried in any earth that gave way to my trowel, and planted three trees. I'm a sucker for any sad looking plant on sale that I bring home and nurse with medicine and hope. I seldom weed unless the plant stings, stinks or doesn't even have a flower to recommend it. Three years ago I planted a large bulb that was in a mixed bag of bulbs bought at a garden sale; it was too big to be a daff. or tulip. I planted it deep into a large pot with three Geraniums. The flowers grew and bloomed two years in a row but the bulb lay forgotten.

[All these pictures enlarge beautifully with a click]

Then last year a small bush grew out of the bulb, flourished and died down. This year it grew again, produced two buds which burst into glorious blossom and announced themselves as Peonies.

I try very hard to restrain JP's use of secateurs and shears because I love the way that nature finds it's place, and the wonderful play of light on the different shades of green upon green. The plant with white flowers is, I think, a false orange. Pretty flowers but they do smell rather like an incontinent cat.

Seventeen years ago this rose bush was a spindly thing; couldn't make up it's mind to live or die. We left it alone and now it is knocking on the study window.

Even tiny gardens have secret spaces if you look hard enough. This ivy covered spot is behind the Lilacs and the pear tree.

And this space is under the massive Elderberry tree. No longer simply a bush it has provided me with enough flowers to make a dozen bottles of cordial: delicious.

I have no idea what this blue flower is. Last year there was just one and this year it has seeded the entire border. Love it. Enabling, see?

And of course, a cool spot for Monsieur Milou.

Have a lovely summer.

FOR JP LOVERS EVERYWHERE

2011-05-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

This morning NOAOson came by to pick up JP and take him to the Supermarket to do the weekly shop. We do it turn and turn about. I make a list and the game is to see how many things from that list he actually buys.
After a chat and cuppa they go. Just over an hour later they are back There are traces of mirth on their faces and it is obvious they have a story to tell. NOAOson tells it, trying hard to keep a straight face and almost succeeding.

NOAOson: As we are pulling in to the parking lot dad asked me if I had heard what Churchill said to Onassis? We got out and walked to the trolleys. I said no, what did he say?

JP: Well, Onassis told Churchill that his flies were open.

NOANOson: And?

JP: Wait, just a minute...I 'ave to post zees letters.

NOAOson:We are now inside the store and in the way, so as he walked back to the post box I moved to the side and looked over to him. I couldn't believe it when he moved to a man [who did look a bit like me] grabbed his arm and said something, laughed, then looked up to the man's face and backed away. He looked around the store and saw me and came over looking rather sheepish.

NOAOson: Do you know that man?

JP: No, I thought it was you.

NOAOson: Well what did you say to him?

JP: I told him the punchline: If ze bird is dead it won't fall out of ze nest!

I do wish they had found the man and asked him what he thought JP was talking about: Did he think it some kind of code for 'the fish really is fresh today?'

RAGE, RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE BRAIN CELLS!

2011-05-20T05:38:00.000-07:00

D-scribes on her Blog here has written about her struggles with technology and it stirred me to write about my latest tussle with that which is as simple as ABC to any child from age one.

At the beginning of this month I bought a new mobile, well, eighteen days ago to be exact; I know this because I had nineteen days to change it if it was all too complicated for me. So I'm keeping it because, well, tomorrow is the 19th day and I could very well walk all the way into town to the phone shop and the girl could say, 'Sorry Madam. Up to but not including the 19th.' and I'll scream and say 'Bitch!!!' to the sweet little thing who, when I took it back a week ago held the bloody thing and her slender young fingers darted over the qwerty keyboard [which is precisely what sold it to me originally + the fact that it looks like a Blackberry even though it is a Pay as you go]

Me: Why can't I get caller id? I mean who can remember 11 digit phone numbers?
Her: [ Obviously dying to say that she could remember any number of them] So you go here to Options, then Settings then scroll down, click on and...there, simple!
Me: Do you think you could go over that again, slowly.

She repeated the actions again at a speed slightly less than that of light.

Her: [looking at the receipt] You still have a few more days, I think it will get easier, and [all this without ever looking directly at me, as if the sight of my old face might strike her dead] if you really must have a Qwerty, [smarmy cow] then I'm afraid they are all this complicated.

Me: And there was no manual..just this flimsy piece of paper that I can only read with a magnifying glass and when I did manage to read it it only tells me what it can do but not HOW TO DO IT! My son had to go online for me and eventually found the manual and printed out all forty seven pages but they still don't tell me how to DO IT!
I am aware that my voice is getting louder, that the staff are giving each other looks and sighing a lot.

At this precise moment a man, middle aged, nice face, seemed to have all his wits about him, chimed in:

Man: If uncomplicated is what you want you should get one of these.' and out of his pocket he pulled a large lump of mobile...the ones with the huge keys and an on/off switch...in technicolour. I wanted to ask if it had stereophonic sound as well; think he was old enough to know what that was...Good old MGM.

Me:[with a rictus smile that is wasted on the girl as she still has not glanced my way] OK, you're probably right. I'll give it another day or two.

This phone can text, do something called direct messaging, connect me to facebook, twitter and email. It has a camera for stills and video, and can connect me to the whole wide world web thingey and probably bake a cake but it cannot let me know who is texting me. Nor am I able to assign a sound to alert me to texts [should anyone text me; the bloody thing has remained ominously silent].

Later the next day: Lord I'm good. Found the sound icon and, although it seemed to be written in a foreign language sussed out the settings. I cannot tell you, or anyone else who should ask, how I did it. Can't find the route again, but at least it makes a noise, well, it would if someone would text me.

Now I must find out how to set caller id: just in case someone remembers I'm their mum. Or I could join Twitter? Heck, what would I write about? Having trouble doing a simple post.

AZUCENA con TABACHIN

2011-05-07T06:19:00.000-07:00

Azucena con Tabachin has been written in large black felt tip pen on the cork board in the kitchen. It rang a bell.

'Why is that up there' I asked.

'It suddenly popped into my 'ead. Do you remember it?'

' Um! '

'Cuernavaca?'

'Of course...Simone's house. Doesn't it sound exotic? Think of some more.'

'What about the apartment in Mexico City?'

'Pitagoras...' and together..."Tercero piso.'

'The flat in Majorca?' he asked.

'Calle Elcano. what about in Caan?'

'Rue des Jacobins. And in ze Alpes des Provence. How could you forgot Le Pres des poiriers.'

I was now in the groove and shouted out...' Montreal?'

'13, Coolbreeze.' he came back with, quick as you like.

'Not so exotic...'

'In Pointe Claire.'

'That's better. Barcelona?'

'Diputacion Tresentos vente tres.'

'Brilliant...any more? Remember, we have to have lived there.'

'Pension Layatana, in Barcelona. Remember ze Patron?'

'His dirty apron and the cigarette he kept in his mouth that always had two inches of ash hovering? And we always had an orange for desert but they were so sour we kept them in our room and used them to juggle with and you did that trick where you threw one in the air and bounced it off your biceps. And the lights were off all day till 5pm but we didn't care because it was siesta time. And you had Spanish lessons from some old fellow who only made you repeat ' Le pluma' over and over until you fired him and relied on dear old Jaime to teach you. There is a story for every address, isn't there?' I pondered for a moment, then I said.

'Addresses like Morris Avenue, St. Georges Terrace, Castle Street and Canterbury Road don't have the same ring, do they?'

'Per'aps not, but zey also have a story. Zey are like chapter 'eadings.'

'Hmmmn! Methinks you are right my old codger. I'll make a note.

OH DEAR! MONSIEUR LE BODGER HAS STRUCK AGAIN

2011-04-27T08:42:00.000-07:00

It happened a few days ago and at first I was so agitated that I said nothing, knowing that if I started on him I might do major damage, and spousal abuse is frowned upon.

Milou has slept under my bed since he was a puppy, when he was less weighty and could jump up to and from the bed easily. He would spend an hour or so snuggled up to me and then, irritated with my restlessness would jump down and crawl under. At first he did not have to duck his head or bend his legs even though there was only eight inches of clearance from the floor to the solid oak frame. But as he has grown older he is obliged to duck and slither underneath and JP, for whom Milou is, well 'special' on a par with the French Rugby team, ripe Camembert, and Napoleon and well ahead of Moi-has become concerned that it is getting too difficult for him.

JP. 'e 'as to do ze limbo to get under zair.
Me. I think it keeps him limber. Limber/limbo-hehe, geddit?
JP. No...I 'ave to do something.

The next day I see him taking some bricks upstairs but it doesn't really register until later. My lovely bed is now on four bricks and I am incandescent.

Me. No, I hate them. Please, take them out of my room.
JP. But you can't see zem.
Me. No, but I caught my foot on one and I hate them. Take them out, now, please.

And this is where I shot myself in the foot.

Me. Anyway, you've made a gigantic booboo because there are four supports underneath that were holding up the centre and are now in mid-air and now I'll break our thirty year old bed that you paid a thousand pounds for and which was supposed to last us till our final breaths.
He went to have a look and came down again with the bricks and I breathed a sigh of relief.

The next day I spent a couple of hours with NOAO son who had taken me to the Supermarket for a big shop. On my return we unpacked and put away the goodies and he made me a cuppa.

JP. I've fixed ze bed.
Me. [wailing] Oh noooooo! What have you done?
JP. [looking very pleased with himself] You won't see any sing. No bricks exposed and Milou will be 'appy.

I rush upstairs and don't know whether to laugh or cry because it's true there is nothing to see because my bloody bed is LEVITATING!

IT ISN'T FUNNY!!!!!!

The thing is that now I'm stuck with it. What he did was to crawl underneath and somehow, Lord knows how because the bed is extremely heavy; and managed to wedge wooden blocks under each of the four middle legs, thus rendering the four outer legs obsolete. I certainly could not remove them. JP refuses to now that Milou can simply walk in and out. NOAO son can hardly walk never mind shimmy under my bed and the only other male candidate is youngest daughter's beau who said that he would not dare undo JP's sterling work.

If you read one day, that an elderly Frenchman, who had led a presumably happy life with his darling wife, is found dead with a Camembert stuffed in his mouth, you will know that I had nothing to do with his demise.

NO MORE RIDING IN MY CAR....

2011-04-22T14:44:00.000-07:00

Our car, un-named after nine years of loyal service, now belongs to Sazzie and has left the county and gone North. So it's to be Shank's pony from now on, [which can only be a good thing] or the Bus [once I can stir myself to apply for our free bus passes] or taxies.

Neither of us enjoy driving any more, one seems always to be on a conveyor belt of irritable drivers, and, aware that we might not be quite as alert as we once were - plus the fact that the car was only used to drive to Tesco once a week, and was costing us more than it was worth - it was really no hardship to let it go

You notice that 'it' had no gender- neither a she nor he was 'it'. And the reason for that was because it had no story attached-it was a common or garden all round good egg, neither fish nor fowl; neither a banger nor sporty eye-catcher, or hugely expensive glittering status symbol. It was simply our last car...a Peugot 306, dark blue, alloy wheels and only 44.000 miles on the clock.

I asked JP 'How many cars have we owned?'

He screwed up his forehead and drew in his lips and I thought, here we go...I wanted him to start at the first and continue chronologically; that was the reason I had pad and pen at the ready. I rushed in before he could muddle my head, zigzagging from T.bird to 2CV.

'The first was the Simca, right?

His forehead relaxed 'Ah yes! Caan 1959, the Epicerie...remember?
I wrote down Simca and 1959 and already had that story in my head.

'Then what, the Hillman?'
He gave me one of those scathing looks designed to reduce me to a mere woman, and he tutted, he actually tutted. I held my hands up and bowed to his greater knowledge of motor cars.

'It was a Ford Prefect.'

'Was that the one that caught fire?

'No,that was the Hillman.'

'Then there was the Humber Super Snipe that I bought for £50 while you were away having a ball on the Riviera when our one and only son was a mere six weeks old.'

'That was business, why do you always bring that up?'

'Because you always rise to it like a fish to a fly, and it amuses me...there were rumours you know.'

'Then the Pontiac in Canada, followed by a Thunderbird...'
We got sidetracked for a while, gliding through the States in our red beauty, and I brought out the album and we were lost in our young selves. Riding back to the Mexican border in air-conditioned style.

'After the T.bird?'

'I'll make a list for you later, go and write something.'

So I shall.

The Simca

We had bought a tiny shop in Caan in Northern France, in the brave but mistaken belief that we could turn it into an Epicerie and make some sort of living out of it.

We now had a car, a second hand Simca which JP could not drive. He took lessons from a Madame Granvale, a stern, tiny bird-like woman who looked like a Max Beerbohm cartoon with a pouter pigeon chest, a long nose, no chin and a Madame Pompadour hair style .

While taking the lessons and waiting for his licence, he would wash and polish the car till it shone then sit in it in it’s parking space behind the shop, reversing a little way out and then driving back into his slot. He passed his test and received his licence on the day we sold the shop. We could not face going back to

England

only three and a half months after leaving. We decided that we would go to

Spain

, to Majorca, find an apartment and rent out rooms. We now had a little money and were positive that we had found the answer.

We made a bed for Sara on top of our cases in the rear window, and set out for the long drive through France and Spain over the Pyrenees - where we brushed our teeth in a mountain waterfall - and on to Barcelona where we took the ferry to Majorca. It was a huge adventure, but we were young and happy together, we answered to no one and the world was our oyster.
This is the story of that time. All the pictures enlarge with a click..

by Moannie

I would dearly love you to meet Felicity and Mr. Joe, two more lovely and eccentric people who touched my life. But before I do I shall fill you in on some background.

****************************************************************

Sazzie was born in August of 1958 and for nine months JP tried a number of different jobs, none of which panned out for no fault of his. We went to France and ran a business there for a few months, someone offered to buy us out and we went back to the Bay, where he worked for some months as Trainee Manager in a restaurant, but the business failed and once again there was no money coming in. Then we were both struck by a brain wave [or idiocy depending on your outlook] We had a car, JP could speak Spanish, we knew Majorca, why didn't we go there, rent a flat with enough bedrooms and rent some out. Simple!

So we packed the car with all we owned, made a bed for Sazzie on the back seat, said goodbye to mum and set off on our big adventure with a bit of money in our pockets and youth and the spirit of adventure in our hearts.

It took us two days to drive to Barcelona, spent one night in an Hotel and took the early morning ferry to Majorca, then drove to the Pension Ancora [where we had spent our pre-wedding honeymoon] and began or search for a suitable Villa or apartment for our new venture.

I do not know how business is carried out in Spain these days, but then it was very much a man's business. A few discreet enquiries in a bar/cafe and JP had an appointment with a Mr. Short who kept the English bookstore. Mr. Short took note of our requirements and agreed to make our needs known in the right quarters; he would be in touch. Meanwhile we caught up with our old friend Jaime. S. a Majorcain Merchant Seaman, third Officer on the Ferries, and got to know the other residents of the Pension.

Felicity

Felicity Morten Farmer [not her real surname] attracted Sazzies attention first. Our daughter was a serious child with an elfin face and a smile, when she deigned to produce it, that dazzled with it's sweetness., and she decided to give it to Felicity one lunch-time, climbing up onto the chair opposite her she composed her hands in her lap and smiled full-on. I made to extract her but Felicity waved me away imperiously and gave Sazzie her full attention. They had a long conversation, slightly one-sided of course as Sazzie's vocabulary was not yet fulsome and then they left the dining room together, Sazzies hand firmly in Felicity's slender one.

We caught up with them down by the water, sitting at one of the tables outside the bar, and got to know this rather special, totally eccentric woman. Of an indeterminate age-she admitted to 41 but we found out much later that she had shaved off 20years-she had the look of a Blanche Dubois about her...blond with large fat curls held back, always, with a bright chiffon scarf. Her face, beautifully painted was doll like...large blue eyes, mascaraed lashes, tiny nose and rose bud mouth painted bright red. Her slim body was dressed in fine Horrocks' Shirt-waist dresses and her court shoes and hand bags and gloves were of beautiful quality. She was the widow of an Army Officer, a Major, and they had spent the majority of their married life in Colonial Service. She had come to Majorca because her widows pension went much further there. And, our luck was in, she was looking for accommodation.

Felicity introduced us to her friends at her local Bodega, PEDRO'S, an establishment consisting of a few small pinewood tables and stools set between enormous barrels of wine that mine host would draw our evening aperitifs from, and at two-pence a glass [this at a time when there were 240 pennies in a pound and a pound was worth about three dollars...who can do math?] you can imagine that we were a merry bunch. It was there that we met Mr. Joe and his friend Alain.

Mr.Joe

Mr. Joe and his friend were Czechoslovakian and had escaped from Czechoslovakia by marrying a Canadian woman, at least Mr. Joe had. After his arrival in Canada she had dumped him and he had somehow arrived in Majorca. Pining for her he bombarded her with letters begging her to take him back; he waited every morning at the Poste Restante office, Felicity told us. He was a very unhappy man and he had the right features for his melancholy.Incredibly tall at 6'10 he stooped as if from weariness, his face pale, always shaded by a panama hat drooped - from his brown Spaniel - like eyes to the jowls that hung in sacs each side of his down-turned mouth. Allain, was domiciled, but Mr. Joe also was looking for a rooming-house.

We re-doubled our efforts, Mr. Short came up trumps with an introduction and a rendezvous for JP to meet a gentlemen who had an apartment for rent; all very clandestine, one evening at a men's Club in the heart of Palma. Flat was viewed that evening, rent decided and we got the keys the next day.

Numero 12, Calle Elcano was the third floor of a four floor newish building. [The fourth floor flat was occupied by a troupe of Flamenco dancers who practised every afternoon on the roof terrace amongst the clothes lines] It had three bedrooms, a salon with a three piece suite of scarlet velvet covered, rococo Paris Brothel, style furniture,a bathroom, WC, and kitchen. It would do.

Our guests moved in. Felicity had a large twin-bedded room, Mr. Joe a single and we made a bed for Sazzie in a corner of our room.

Mr. Joe and Felicity hardly bothered with breakfast but it was agreed that I would provide an evening meal. I tackled the job with vigour, sourcing fresh vegetables and fish and sending JP out for meat. And it was my first effort that almost ended the whole enterprise. I stated that dinner would be at six-thirty and set about making a steak and mushroom pie. Not only was it the first meal I had ever cook for anyone beside my family, I had never cooked on a wood and charcoal fired oven and grill, and certainly not in Spain, in August, when the temperature had no difficulty reaching 40degrees in a kitchen that was a lot smaller than it appears in my picture. I diced the beef and browned it, then stewed it till tender in a rich sauce, lightly fried the mushrooms and turned this all into a deep dish. By now the room was so hot that I had a cold shower and changed into my bikini. Then I made the pastry, covered the pie, and left it aside while I prepared vegetables, potatoes for mash, and something green...in those days I was very English and a meal was meat and two veg. Time to put the pie in the devils oven, and have another shower. By six thirty the table was laid, pie and vegetables prepared and we waited, and waited, and waited. When they arrived at nine, slightly the worse for wear but very hungry they sat down in the dining room and I plonked their food in front of them and watched as Mr. Joe valiantly tackled the now dry and sorry looking pie, and Felicity delicately picked and peered at the dark lumps on her plate.

I burst into tears and ran to the bedroom leaving JP to explain how hard I had worked and in what conditions.

Much later we all sat in the brothel, er, Salon and Mr. Joe told me in his mournful tones how very sorry they were and explained that in Spain the evening meal never starts before nine o/clock at the earliest, because it is just too hot. That I must never cook for them again, but make salads or an omelet or not even bother, they really did not mind.

Hot enough to sizzle

Felicity had an admirer, Jaime [segundo-to differentiate from our friend Jaime] a beach vendor, a small, lithe and darling man, a widower who provided for his twelve year old daughter by selling knick-knacks from a large black painted box fixed to his Velocolex. He would park his machine outside the Bodega and come inside and stand silently next to her, gazing at her with adoration while she studiously ignored him. After a while he would bid us all Bueno Apetido, touch her shoulder gently and leave. She would blush furiously and make a moue with her painted mouth and shrug her narrow shoulders. 'I don't encourage him, poor little man' she would say. Yet, every evening she, Mr. Joe and Allain drank together with Jaime Segundo and he brought her home with one arm holding her steady and the other hand pushing his trusty machine.

Jaime Secundo

We managed our little venture for three months-during which time we fell into a routine of sorts.

In the morning we all ate a simple breakfast of fruit, ensamadas or toasted bread rolls and coffee. Mr. Joe would go to the Poste Restante and Felicity would play with Sazzie, allowing her to watch her perform the miracle of transformation from pale, lined ancient to gay young thing-then she would dress in one of her three, well-worn but beautiful frocks, unpin her curls and turn them into chunky sausages wrapped in chiffon before leaving on her pilgrimage into town for coffee with her cronies, Mr. Joe and Allain.

I would make beds and clean while JP shopped for the evening meal which now took place at 9.00pm, allowing plenty of time for the evening's carousal. After lunch I would take a tram with Sazzie and spend the afternoon toasting myself on a beach somewhere, be back in time for a siesta, feed Sazzie, and then go down to the Bodega for an aperitif, before returning home to prepare the meal, and then to bed.

But it had to end. What money we had bought with us was fast disappearing. I was feeding us too well and their rent had not been well thought out. JP needed to find something to do, and we realised that we were kidding ourselves...this was never going to make our fortune or even provide us with a decent living. It was fun, and despite Mr. Joe's idiosynrasies...like wrapping his head in a towel to go to sleep, leaving his huge handkerchiefs to soak in the bath, and his inability to smile, we really were very fond of him, and Felicity had become very close, especially to Sazzie, who adored her. We had to tell them they must leave.

Strangely it was the impetus Mr. Joe needed. He wanted to go home to Czechoslovakia, now he was a Canadian Citizen he was free to return. He bought our Simca and left three days later with Allain.

I wrote a short story once, wherein I imagined Felicity and Jaime Segundo got together-she drew portraits of holiday makers, while he sold his knick-knacks. Sadly that did not happen. She too went home to England and moved in with an un-married niece. We kept in touch for a year or two, then we emigrated to Canada and we lost touch.

My dream for Felicity and Jaime Secundo

We have never been back to Majorca and only once more to Spain, for a ghastly two weeks in Sitges, but that is another story.

A very quick quickie

2011-04-21T02:44:00.000-07:00

For those of you who follow Sazzie and are wondering where she went, her Domain was sold away.

She can now be found on http://fabfeistyandfifty.blogspot.com She misses you and is waiting and ready.

IT ONLY TOOK A MOMENT!

2011-04-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

IT ONLY TOOK A MOMENT

TO GET

FROM HERE

- WITH THREE STOPS ON THE WAY-

TO HERE

Latest picture of the old fogies letting it all hang out.

My Mother Was a Dancer

2011-03-24T08:21:00.000-07:00

Here is another re-post, with apologies to those who are getting fed up with me. Sometimes remembering the past jolts my decaying brain cells and points me to another 'story'.

First posted-

Oct 7, 2008 4:18 PM

My Mother was a Dancer

by Moannie

No, that is not her dancing with Victor Silvester, the Len Goodman of his day, at least I don't think so. I found this picture, from 1930, in Google images, when she would have been nineteen. The resemblance to mother is strong and I know there were photos of her with him but I cannot swear that this is one of them.

A lot of the stories told to us by our parents have to be taken on trust and my belief in the validity of her tales is strengthened by the fact that, although mother had her faults, lying was not one of them.

Mother was the product of her mother's seduction by the son of the couple she worked for as a maid in a large house in one of London's famous Squares. According to family history, the father was a Viscount. My dear Aunt Midge always promised to tell me 'the name', but died with her lips sealed. My Grandmother could not bear the sight of the product of her 'shame' and mother left home very young. Dates are sketchy...oh how I wish I had paid more attention, asked more questions...the young are more interested in themselves; but sometime between leaving home and having her first child in 1932, mum was a showgirl and a dancer.

I had a picture of her that I treasured, sadly it was forgotten and left, with many other irreplaceable pictures, in a box on top of a cupboard when we emigrated to Canada. She is on stage, in a tableau with a dozen other girls. She is posed, kneeling sideways on to the camera, her arms behind her, her head back, and she is very nude. She looked like one of those small ivory and bronze statues...very beautiful.

Victor Silvester was a Bandleader, born in 1900, and was very very famous up until the day he died in 1978. His sound was 'strict tempo', no flying solos, no fireworks, just 'slow, slow, quick quick, slow'. He had started out as a dance teacher and continued to teach even as a bandleader. Mother was just one of his many partners.

Mum would dance at the drop of a hat [if my stepfather was not around] Back would go the furniture and she would pull one or another of us into her arms and try to teach us the intricacies of the waltz, the foxtrot or the quick step, her long legs gliding, her arms lined to perfection, and her feet, in the high heels she loved, pointed and elegant.

The dancing stopped for her, in the early fifties, when she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. She was 44.

The illness progressed very slowly, little by little taking away all her joi de vivre. We had been estranged for a number of years, not surprising really, given our history, but when I heard of her illness I went to see her and we made a sort of peace. By then she was walking with two sticks, had gained weight and lost her sparkle; no more flirting with the milkman, no more singing and no more dancing.

Much later...a marriage and three children later, we were in a position to offer her a haven in the Retirement Home that we owned. By now a quadriplegic she spent all her time in her room on the first floor. She had a Possum machine that could open and close doors, turn lights and the TV and radio on and off, and could turn the pages of her book, simply with the power of Puff and Blow. Her favourite paintings and photographs were on the walls and we were living in the building, so she had family around her. I think she grew to love me.

She read extensively and watched quite a lot of television, especially, and to me, amazingly, Cricket and Snooker. But the one program that gave her the most pleasure, was 'Come Dancing'. For there, with his 'slow, slow, quick quick slow,' was Victor Silvester and his Band. That first series of shows, which continued for many years, was a contest of amateurs, with professional dancers giving exhibitions. The women's gowns were full and flowing fluffy layers of tulle in glorious pastel colours and the men wore white tie and tails. It was an extravaganza of nostalgia, and mum was in heaven.

Now, when I watch Strictly Come Dancing, or the American Version, Dancing with the Stars, I smile, and can see mother, gliding and skipping and swaying, and hear her singing, in time to the music: Slow, slow, quick quick slow.

Written for mum.

I cannot walk, or wash my face
And the things you do that are commonplace
Are realms of fantasy for me.

A grandchild's gift
to be carefully chosen
Is an ordinary thing through which my dreams are woven.

My gratitude for simple things is tinged with blue
Better to do for others
Than have them done for you.

Bet yet, I live, and breathe
And while a can, my being here, and being
Is enough, and I'll not grieve.

For I have given life three times
And done the best I know
So there will be something here of me
Even when I go.

Awarded Post of the day at Authorblog, thank David!

GOTTA LOVE THE ITALIANS!

2011-03-22T08:49:00.000-07:00

JP was in a retrospective mood the other day at lunchtime; not unusual, but these moods are becoming more frequent as the years roll by. I blame his Grandmother Margot, who took him to have his fortune told when he was quite young. The woman - who had quite a reputation among the great and the good in Cannes, having read the crystal ball for many a star and starlet - told him that he would marry a blonde [not specifying bottle or natural] that they would have three children and that he would live to the [what seemed to him at the time] ripe old age of 76. Now at 74 he seems to be convinced that - as she was right about the wife and the kids, she must be spot on with his departure date. Hence the looking back.

He began by talking about his mother - how she managed to bring him up alone - her strong right arm, her inflexible decision to keep him away from trouble by locking him in their flat, and his many ways of thwarting her. How he loved to escape and play with his friends, always managing to return home before she arrived back from her work.

And, as always when JP tells a story he digresses as other characters are introduced. His uncle Marcel, the fisherman who went barefooted summer and winter, with the exception of his wedding day, from there he segued to his Tante Carmen, perhaps the most Italian of the brood. She was a hearty buxom woman, always laughing - totally different from her sister Antoinette, JP's mother. She adored JP and it was on one of the many occasions when they were together that they witnessed what I want to call The Italian Comic Opera Invasion.

It is 1940 and JP is 4 years old, a charming black-eyed cherub with a naughty streak. He remembers being taken by Tante Carmen to the Croisette and that there were crowds of people. He could hear some chanting and booing in the distance that grew louder with every passing minute. At last there was movement in the road some flag waving and then, as the procession arrived he could see they were soldiers, in full uniform and all wearing long plumes of feathers in their hats.

And riding eight abreast in wobbly formation, on bicycles.

The chanting was now loud as, all around him, young man were shouting:

Les Bersaghlieri sont venu avec les plumes aux chapeaux

Ils sont reparte avec ses plumes au "cu".

Les Bersaghlieri have arrived with their plumes in their hats

They will leave with the plumes up their arses.

JP was shouting loudly along with the chant until Carmen grabbed his ear and tugged on it. 'Be quiet idiot' she scolded him...'You have more Italian blood in you than French.'

What amazes me about this story is the fact that, after going on fifty three years together, he can tell me a story I had never heard before.

IT'S A DOG'S LIFE ALRIGHT!

2011-03-18T05:21:00.000-07:00

I've only recently noticed that, when I repaired my Blog-putting back the header and profile and settings etc. I did not replace the lost picture of Milou, a grave oversight given that he, along with JP play a large part in the make-up of many of the posts.

Milou and his friend and cousin [by marriage]

So, for the sake of those new friends sent here by 'Blogger of Note' [many of whom have fallen by the wayside as expected] here is a brief Bio. of my canine friend:

I shall be nine years old on the tenth of November

Walking is pretty good fun.

I'm a bit too heavy for laps, but I can do knees, no problem. These belong to Sazzie.

I used to be professionally pampered, now the woman does it, not so well, but I won't hurt her feelings.

Harry exhausts me-no respecter of old age.

I totally love bathing and then the rubbing dry,heaven!

All things considered I have a pretty good life; the man and the woman dote on me, it's embarrassing sometimes. Buy hey! It's a dog's life.

My kind of town....

2011-03-12T06:42:00.000-08:00

I am going to tell you a bit about my town. It has nothing to recommend it, either culturally, aesthetically or geographically. No one famous lives or has ever lived here [in the sixties the parents of Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits ran a pub here though he was never seen .]

I have just remembered that IN 1963 a film was made here in the The Bay entitled French Dressing and, I have discovered, on the wonderful 'knowitall' that is Google, that it was Ken Russell's directorial début.
Local people were used as extras. Sadly the film has never been shown on TV nor is it available on DVD

There is a lovely short video of our, 'Pier that was' with the star of the film, James Booth, cycling the length of it to deliver a ticket to a deck chair user. AND LOOK! SAZZIE HAS INSERTED IT HERE FOR ME. YIPPEE!
. .

When I first came here in 1946 to holiday with a friend of my mother, it was a slightly decaying Edwardian town with the second longest pier in England, plate glass was a dubious joy to come and the Street lights were the original and real Mcoys. There were shops selling meat and shops selling baked goods and Greengrocers and two Fishmongers, a coffee bar, Hardware Stores, fifteen pubs, eight churches/chapels/and one Masonic Temple. Charity shops had not been invented nor did we boast a Super Market. Our friendly grocers weighed our bacon and sugar and tea, patted our butter and biscuits were taken from brown cardboard boxes, weighed into paper bags which were then swung by the edges over and over in a movement that fascinated me, to the extent that I thought I had found my calling. The man with the striped apron tied high under his arms would pat moist butter into neat squares, slice the cheese with a wire cutter, turn the handle on the bacon slicer and watch the slices drop neatly onto greaseproof...all this in an atmosphere that was scented with sugar and salt and cheese. Heaven!

It seemed to me then that I knew everyone-our postman cycled through rain and snow, ice or blazing sun, always the same man. He knew us and we knew him, he shared our relief when a letter from Mexico contained a cheque. George was his name was and his son Terry was a one-time boyfriend. The man who emptied the gas meter was named Fred, he knew us so well that he counted the French francs we had used when the shillings ran out before pay day, and accepted the equivalent straight out of the pay packet. We knew our coal-man, his face and arms blackened with coal dust, an empty sack open at one seam thrown over his head and back to give him some protection as he lumped the sacks into our bunker.

We knew all our neighbours and their joys and sorrows, sharing, to halve them.

Then, as England began to pull herself up out of post-war gloom businesses boomed and progress stripped The Bay of it's tiny bit of uniqueness. Councillors allowed Jerry building; destruction of the old and quaint for concrete blocks which would last only a quarter of the time. Most of the Pier blew down in a storm and the powers that be twiddled their thumbs until it grew too expensive to rebuild it back to it's original glory, putting up only the Pier head or Pavilion in a style reminiscent of a factory.

As the decades passed we would return from some exotic location to find the town dying more and more, shops closed leaving gaps in the High Street until it looked like a row of decaying teeth. Only the seafront came alive, in the summer months as those without the means to enjoy the delights of the new 'Package Holidays' to Spain, would spend their two weeks in B&Bs and their days sheltering behind groynes on our pebbled beaches.

Now there is a new burst of hope for our town as City Dwellers, searching for an affordable second home, and working their way down the coast. have found their way to us. They are buying up and refurbishing and need the boutiques and Bistros and coffee shops. Things are looking up-but so are the prices. But that is a small price to pay [excuse the pun] if we are ever to see The Bay return to its original Edwardian Splendour.

I rarely see a face I know, and Charity shops abound [though a bargain is hard to find these days-no longer are the shops musty, fusty and dusty but smell of strong air-fresheners and display Fair-trade goods which one would not buy in the country of origin as too naff.]

So what is it exactly about this town that brought as back here time and time again?
Well, it is perhaps its very unpretentiousness. It is what it is, a slightly run-down seaside town, where the air is bracing, the sea [now clean] is cold, the shingle is hard on the feet, the penny arcades still attract when the wind is too cold and the shops are, little by little, returning. As petrol prices brings tears to the eyes and Super-markets revel in their monopolizing profiteering, small businesses are starting to emerge again, giving the personal service we thought lost forever.

And...I can see memories around every corner.

Marble Halls and Polly Perfect

2011-02-28T09:07:00.000-08:00

I have rather too many notebooks scattered around. Most of them make no sense to me, full, as they are with undecipherable scribble, doodles and cross-hatchings. But one turned up when I was looking in my box of diaries and I've decided to take an excerpt for your delectation. [with some editing of the many swear words]

Time moves so quickly for me that the recent past disappears into a pinpoint. Should I live long enough, say another thirty or forty years, I would remember that time with ease, even be able to put faces to the names I rediscovered in this little black book, but for now all that is left to me is the awful homesickness I felt; surprising myself with the intensity of it. I, who felt invincible surrounded by my loved ones was bereft and, I confess, out of my depth in the Halls of academe that I had so longed to be a part of.

The scene is Bath University, time, the summer of 2004 and I am attending the Summer School, an obligation for the points needed towards my degree. Only one other member of my group from home, John, is also attending, but he has quickly paired up with a younger more nubile woman with whom he eats, studies and plays. The class has been divided into groups of four or five and our task, for the last day and the last session before leaving is to discuss various themes concerning the painting entitled The Air Pump by Joseph Wright of Derby We got together in the bar after the class and came up with the idea of trying to make it a bit funny by doing a University Challenge Skit...then they all drifted off and left me to work out the details.

Day 4 Wednesday: Well! it is 10.30 and I'm in bed. I tried to call you all but the men must be doing Kent League and the girls out? I'm finishing my Nachos and listening to my radio which I have amplified a bit by dropping the earpiece into an empty glass. Had a good day today, finishing on a good note, literally. We had three sessions with David G. A full prof. I'm not sure that I remember much of what he said over the four and a half hours during which he covered History of Science, Religious Studies and History, but boy was he fascinating to listen to.
Had a baguette for lunch 'cos I could not face the food in hall, then the 3rd session and back here to rest up.
I think you will get a shock when you see me because I look awful, red puffy eyes and my feet and legs are swollen [perhaps I am destined to spend my life at sea level] Evening meal inedible. I won't bother to describe it but when the veg. alternative is better than the non-but not much-it tells you something.
Brilliant option evening of music, with our own tutor.

Lost one of our group, dear old Douglas-the note taker. He writes down everything that is said so we don't have to bother; just ask Douglas and he will repeat verbatim. It seems his wife was walking the dogs on some moor or other, fell and broke her ankle. She had to crawl for a mile to get help;at 68...tough old bird. Now we have to re-think our presentation.
Miss you, miss my bed, miss telly, miss dad nagging me,miss my garden [has it been secateur-ed to death?]
One more day...love ya XXX

Thursday: 60's day. 3 sessions on the culture and counter culture that began in the 60's. Martin Ashley has been a good tutor and today was very good too. Certainly made us think about what we're saying. If I've learned anything this week it is that one must formulate an argument before voicing it, make it a valid argument, and that it does not have to be right, only valid.
Spent some time on the project [finally-all the others seem to have a life] I'm presenting the painting, it's form design genre etc. Sean the history, Richard philosophy and Pat the scientific. Any mistakes we will blame on Douglas' absence. Musical show in the evening very good. Anne [the girl who can do no wrong..friendly, pretty, mother of four,]did four things; she sang in the choir, in a quartet and had a solo then was in a skit on 'The Importance of being Earnest'. She was very good, well, when your six year old reads 'The Lord of the Rings, your husband is a Queens Council, your diction is perfect, you sing and play the piano and cosy up to the tutors, oh, and read poetry aloud at option sessions, you are bound to be a leading light at AmDram. {I cannot believe how bitchy I was}
John has a new girlfriend. I've never seen him so animated.
Home tomorrow. Yippeeee!

Day 6th. Friday: So, the big day has arrived. An early breakfast with what passes for coffee [when I think what this summer school is costing..bah!] Then join the others in room 2-12. Bob comes in with a lectern, oh lord! and a slide projector. Can't get out of it now. First off is Lyn and her team...Chris tells us a bit about Ovid, how he pissed off Augustus and was exiled - rumour goes that he was shafting Gus's daughter. Then Lyn read her script-I was so nervous for her-no idea what she said. They sat down and we had 15minutes of discussion on Ovid. I tried to spin it out but Martin wasn't playing-we were next, we were up and we were for it.

I was the opener and I was feeling fine as I explained how we had planned a different format, something hopefully amusing but had been obliged to change our plans at the last moment. [not a flicker of sympathy from Martin] but the moment that the curtains were drawn, projection light on and the slide in to reveal that bloody picture I began to lose it. Two hours I had spent the night before writing my script. but I hadn't reckoned with the pointer. This was to be my tool, I could point out the salient facts. With it I would be a god, a tutor, in command. Was I heck! While using the pointer I couldn't be looking at my script and I sure did not know it by heart. So there I am, blathering on about 'Spatial plane' and thinking, what the ..... is that? I stumbled into the illusory plane, remembered the important triangle of arms, hand, head and eye and the meaning of the skull, remembered the names of only two of the ten characters and found that my writing appeared to have dissolved into little black splodges on all three pages.

I vacated the lectern and passed it over to Richard, who decided to stay where he was, abandoning the pointer-wise move considering the bad vibes. He did as badly as I. My performance had turned that vibrant man into jelly and he bottled. Pat saved the day. Cool, calm and collected she gathered all our disparate threads and wove them all neatly together, salvaging us from total humiliation. She sat down to mild, scattered applause.
Martin spent 20 minutes on our subject and as he did my notes sprang back into neat sensible rows again and I was able to answer questions.

Then it was the turn of Ann's group. Dear Polly Perfect, talented, never flustered, always cool, bandbox pristine under the roughest conditions. [Jealous? Moi?]

Wait till you hear this: She had gracefully accepted the music assignment that no one else wanted because it was too difficult. She had gathered her troops around her, [God knows when, what with choir practice, solo quartet and sketch practice] she produces an informative, brilliant explanation of this piece of atonal shit. She even discovered and proved a Jig in the piece that Martin, a music prof. had missed. [Do you hate her yet?] She's not finished; Graeme, with his osteoporosis and two walking sticks is blessed with a deep Richard Burton/Anthony Hopkins voice, and he reads, nay, almost sings a poem entitled White Man Sleeps which is-bloody incidentally- the name of the piece of music. Where the hell did she find it? It was sooooooooooooo good. Martin said many nice things after we had applauded and I was forced to admit that I was beginning to like the piece of music...she had made it accessible [did I tell you that the Paragon of virtue had copied out the theme and given us all a copy?] After we had discussed the work in some detail I asked [shut up fool] if we could have the poem read again, and Graeme obliged, giving it even more wellie than ever.
'It is so very good' I trilled, 'Who wrote it, do tell?'
'Well, actually, said Graeme, looking very pleased with himself, 'Ann wrote it this morning, at breakfast.'
Did I walk into that?
Ann had her head coyly in her hands and whimpered 'Oh, please!'

Don't you just hate a goody goody.

The last couple of pages tell of leaving and then finally I sum up: I need people who love me around me, I found out that much about myself. I love my family before anything, but I also love the challenge of learning, the stimulation of new thoughts.

I am still in awe of academia but I'll get over that [I never have] those who dwell in marble halls are just people-albeit with a head start on me. But I guess I'll give them a good run, even if I never catch up.

RUN RABBIT RUN

2011-02-24T08:50:00.000-08:00

Because I have a head full of nothing. Because I need to be in touch and because Leave it to Davis asked me to post something, anything, I am reposting this from 08.

Dec 3, 2008 5:24 PM

Run Rabbit run

by Moannie

Tony was born on the IIth January I944. We had been sent away to stay with Grannie [Fairy]but after his birth we did not return to the tiny flat in Kilburn. Harry became the manager of a Fish and Chip shop in Morden in Surrey, the first of what would be many moves. It worked like this: Harry did not pay bills until the last possible moment and if he could escape paying them by using his considerable charm [when it suited him] and various tall stories, usually centring on a sick wife, children, or aged parents-he would. Then, when he considered that he had saved enough he would find another shop with living accommodation. Mother would pack whatever could be carried and we would leave, usually at night.

June’s first task at the new venue would be to seek out the local ‘hole-in-the-wall’ where she would replace beds, armchairs, table and chairs, mirrors, even pictures for the walls. Sometimes my bed was iron, sometimes just a mattress on the floor; it all depended on the local junkman’s stock. One room I had contained a single bed, a chair, some hooks for my clothes and an eight by eight foot Gilt framed mirror that the last tenant had left behind. It was against the wall with my bed pushed up sideways onto it. Oh, how I preened and posed, candle light lending my plain face interesting contours.

There were other places where he left us while he went off looking for another easy target; if for example the owner of our last shop had discovered that he was being ripped off and had turned us out onto the street. We would go to a new town and wait until sent for. One town I recall was Skegness where we stayed in an attic room with a sloping roof in a boarding house which we had to vacate from nine thirty am to five thirty pm. Tony was still a baby and it must have been hard for mum to cope. The landlady would frown and tut whenever she saw us, probably because Tony kept the house awake with his teething. But Mick and I would run free. Free from school and free from the louring cloud of Harry's disapproval we scoured the town for amusement. When we did stay long enough in one place to go to school we would always be the ‘new kids’, condemned never to know where anything was; always in front or behind the curriculum. Very few of the schools have stayed in my memory, because we were like gypsy children, we went because we had to by law but we were perfectly happy to run free.

We knew how to slope off, make ourselves scarce, and provided that we came back for meals and did our chores, it was the best solution all round, out of Harry’s eye line, out from under foot and out of doors. By the time Tony was old enough to keep up with me he was my shadow. I took him everywhere with me and Mick began to leave me to go with his own friends.

I am trying to remember if the war years were a fearful time. In I939 I was only five and for a long time our corner of England escaped unscathed. But eventually even in Somerset there were air raids. German bombers would be after a factory, a train terminal, or shipping and there would be dogfights with shrapnel raining down from damaged planes. The siren would wail its warning and we would be collected in the common room [I do not know where the boys sheltered] and during one particularly bad period of bombing, all the beds were brought downstairs to this room and that is where we ate and played and slept. But it was so much a part of our lives, like school or praying, that I think, in the way of children, it was an accepted part of the whole.
There were times later when we felt actual fear, seeing doodlebugs and later V2 rockets in London, holding our breath that they would pass beyond us before the engine cut out and it dived on us. The worst times for me were when we had to shelter in cupboards under stairs. It was dark and smelly and cramped; Mum, Mick, Me and baby Tony, huddled together in the tiny space, listening to the Ack Ack [onomatopoeic] gun mounted on a truck and manned by the Home Guard driving up and down the street shooting at enemy aircraft.

Mick and I hated Hitler. A lot of our play involved intricate plans to track him down and arrest him. We could not understand why all our soldiers, and the Yanks could not find him and put him in prison. If they caught him the fighting would stop, would'nt it?

The concept of death meant nothing to me, I was not afraid of dying as I had no understanding of mortality, life and death. It would be a very long time before I voiced the age old query, why am I here? No, they were the worst of times because of my fear of spiders. Mick would never miss an opportunity to tell stories of horrible fat killers with large hairy legs and fangs that would not disgrace a tiger. Mostly we all became deathly tired of being afraid. Mum wanted to evacuate us away from the bombing and now there was the added threat from Doodlbugs. These were winged rockets that were shot out over the Channel with enough fuel to take them over London. They were not specifically targetted and, once the fuel ran out and the engine stopped, they dived.

Early one morning we all came back from the Underground to try and get some sleep. Some of the stations had bunk beds and there was even a holiday atmosphere as families came together with friends, shared food, sang and even danced if someone had an harmonica or accordian. But we slept on the platform as best we could in the crowded conditions, and left as the first trains began to run into the station. I remember that Mick and I had gone to our bunk beds and I slept briefy. I awoke to the familiar noise of a Doodlebug in the distance. If you close your mouth and grunt uh,uh,uh, uh that is the sound the bugs made. This time it was getting nearer. I sat up in my top bunk and turned to the window...Harry was there, and mum and she had tony asleep in her arms. They were looking out at the sight of a doodlebug one street over; it passed to the left, and the engine stopped. A few seconds later there was a loud explosion and they ducked under the window as the glass rattled, broke, and would have showered them had the glass not been stuck with crossed tape. 'Enough' said mum.

So did have a brief trial at evacuation, a three month stay in Diss, Norfolk, with a great friend of mums; a heavenly hiatus which took place during a very long, warm summer. Moira Burdett was an Hon. [daughter of a peer] and was the first eccentric I had ever met. She spoke the King’s English like a BBC announcer that made my Somerset vowels horrible to my own ears.Mick and I clashed with her own elder daughter Jennifer and mother sniffed at Moira’s morals [she drank and was living with a man almost as eccentric as herself who drifted away when it was obvious that we were there for the long haul] Three months was all that mum could stand away from the blacked out lights of London and we returned for another bout, spending the nights in the underground until the night that one hundred and seventy three people were killed by a direct hit on Bethnal Green station.

When eventually Harry thought that it was time to move away we went to Folkestone: in what turned out to be a case of from the frying pan to the fire, to a Fish and Chip shop that sat at one end of Harvey Street. Luckily it was the farthest end from the sea for that area was obliterated by a parcel of bombs that must have been intended for the harbour. Folkestone at that time was a very attractive resort, unlike today when it is spoiled by traffic zoning, one way streets and new builds. The long pebble beach below the Leas was lined with concrete blocks and barbed wire and citizens were discouraged from using it. But the smaller sandy cove beyond the harbour was open to the public and every warm day saw it littered with bodies as we lapped up the rays and pretended life was normal. The Leas were, and I believe still are, covered by Mediterranean pines that had branches which grew like flat arms, perfect for small children like Mick and I to lie and watch dog fights between the speedy British Spitfires and the German Messerschmitt. Sometimes, on a particularly clear day we could actually see the French coast and, if we were lucky V2 rockets leaving the French coast and arching over us on the way to London.

I TOLD YOU SO.....

2011-02-16T07:12:00.000-08:00

As I have told you before, many times, the reason why I post so much of my past is that my present is without incident. Been there, done that, and now wear the tee shirts - fine as silk with use and washing - as shorty nighties.And to prove it to be true I shall recount this one day, today.

I woke at eight, a good night, turned my radio off at midnight and did not linger too long in that awful 'I'll never fall asleep' limbo. I stretch, testing limbs, ligaments and cartilages. Think about getting up, but JP. is at the door, Milou high in his arms looking down on me. I say 'Good morning', stroke the dog and the man and they leave.

I'm up when they return from their walk although I have taken an age to decide what to wear from my stock of black leggings, black tops and well worn boring sweaters. My dilemma is over the quantity of each I might need today. Yesterday was a three layer day but, we are told by the all-knowing weather girls, that today will be wet and windy with an easterly wind making it seem colder. [sorry...but if it is 6degrees then surely it should feel 6 degrees] I make it four layers-it is always cold in the kitchen first thing, more so if JP has decided that it isn't cold and has not switched on the electric fire to heat the room. He is later than usual as he met Stavros [ our dentist and friend] and discussed football results for fifteen minutes.

I did tell you...

He has the papers, the kettle is on and places laid [what a star] so I feed Milou, make the tea or coffee and make my toast. We eat and read. I comment a lot, read out stuff, and he does a lot of uhmming and grunting in lieu of responses. I do the code word puzzle...then we swap papers, taking less time with them as they virtually give the same information.

This morning we washed the large windows in the living room-he banging on the outside to point at the places I had missed and I doing the same back to him.

One piece of mail: Damart sent me a key to a brand new Puegeot: It is mine if I buy at least £20 worth of merchandise from their new catalogue and my name is pulled out of the box. Yeah,right!
Then I go upstairs to be greeted by LM's [youngest daughter] cat . And she too has a routine that she hates to vary. She leads me here to the study where I switch on Paco [computer] then leads me elegantly - there is no other word to describe the gait of any cat, especially one like Mollikins who has an inflated opinion of her own importance - into my bedroom where she jumps on the chair in front of my dressing table and waits for me to make my bed. I then brush her.

I spend a little while logging on, reading any comments and just looking around.
Downstairs again, plump cushions, vac. if needed and dust, always there is dust which doesn't show when the sun don't shine.

See what I mean?

After lunch I took Milou for a walk, short or long depending on weather and state of joints. Then I watched Doctors and finished my latest book Last Train from Liguria by Cristine Dwyer Hickey, I cannot rate it too highly...beautiful writing and heartbreaking story.

About five o/clock I start to think about preparing supper, though the menu has been fixed since breakfast-a daily 'must have' discussion broached by JP for whom meals are the most important part of the day-it will be seafood risotto-green salad and the ubiquitous cheeses.

TV comes next...and, since having Sky plus, and the ability to record so much I'm in heaven with The Good Wife, Grey's Anatomy, Bones, NCIS, et al.

By ten thirty we are abed. JP. with a book and me to listen to the radio, stations 2,4,7 or Classic FM.

During this one day the phone has rung three times; all of the calls were 'scatter sales'.
It has been too cold and wet to garden or to dry clothes.
Things will change with the weather, when we can eat outdoors and I can fulfill my ideas for planting, take longer walks with Milou or even do some watercolours. But, till then, this is our lives, kiddos.

Now you know why I draw on the days when things happened, when we were young and adventurous [or stupidly careless].

Hope I haven't bored you too much.
How do you think I feel?

SHARING: A LESSON LEARNED

2011-02-09T03:46:00.000-08:00

It's good to share, we all know that don't we? 'Share your toys, darling...be nice' our mothers plead. We share our space, scrunching up on benches, 'Sit here, there's plenty of room' we say as elbows dig into our ribs and mounds of flesh overlap and get caught beneath our thighs. Our Government shares our taxes with despots and good, altruistic millionaires share their wealth, sometimes without fanfare.

So sharing is, on the whole, good.

I learned the hard way all about sharing.

At St. Edith's, the orphanage where I spent five long years, my brother Mick and I were the only children with a parent. Mum seldom came to see us. She remembers it differently, says that she came once a month. Uh uh!
She came once with Jan, the Norwegian Merchant Seaman, once with a tall well padded man who brought me a red child's handbag, once when she took us to a Pantomime of Cinderella, once in the summer when we climbed on the rocks and found an old empty tin of Heinz Baked Beans and she screamed at us, because, apparently it was well known that the Germans left bombs lying around disguised as beans. And another time when I had Mumps. And, of course, there was the time she bought the awful Harry.

I cannot remember who she brought with her when we got the Dolly Mixtures. More than likely they were a gift from a 'prospective daddy'. These tiny sugary delights, in individual kid's size jars would have been unobtainable in war - torn, rationed England; they would have been carefully measured out from a large jar and weighed to a strict 2oz measure of the weekly allowance. Tipped into a paper bag and the top tightly twisted, they could, at least in my brother's case, last a week. Mine would be gone in a mouthful or two of sweet heaven.

I arrived back at the Convent clutching my Dolly Mixtures and, after changing out of my 'best' coat and dress into everyday hand-me-down skirt and Jersey [as we then called our 'sweaters'] I sat down and opened the jar.
About to put the first sweet-scented rose-pink square into my drooling mouth I became aware of the cessation of all noise and looked up to see ten pairs of eyes staring at the jar in my lap, well, eleven pairs if you count Sister's.
Sister Edith was a stern woman, perhaps she was old, she would have seemed so to me, at six years old. I might have fared better had it been one of the novices but no, it was Sister Edith.

'Do you not think it is Christian to share your good fortune, Molly?' She rose from her chair and towered over me. 'Of course you do...come girls...arranged your chairs in a circle and Molly will divide her bounty as Jesus shared his.'

There was a scraping of chairs on the floorboards as the girls did her bidding. They sat down, their palms upwards on their laps. Pink palms, white palms, large small and fat palms, all held out for my glorious squares of sugar.
Slowly I began, dipping into my jar and dropping a sweet in each one. Some of the girls could not wait and I watched with watering mouth as the delights vanished, each sweet almost too small to chew. Round the chairs I went, pausing in front of Sister Edith, staring at her clasped hands then raising my eyes to her face, her lips in a tight moue that could have been interpreted as distaste or disapproval. I remained rooted to the spot until with a 'tut' and slight shake of her wimpled head she indicated that I should move on.

Round I went, and round again, filling single large palms and cupped smaller ones until the jar was empty. I sat down and replaced the lid, realization hitting me. I opened my mouth to speak, to protest, to plead, but Sister Edith spoke first.

'Well, Molly! Jesus truly loves you. You have made your friends happy with your selfless act. Say thank you children.'

I swallowed the wail that rose in my throat and fought the tears that threatened to spill over-saving them for the comfort of my pillow later. As I watched the girls tucking into their spoils I thought that something was not right. If I had done such a good thing, why wasn't I feeling good about it? Why did I want to fight them all to quench my mouth of it's desire for those sweet sugary sensations?
Was I a bad person?

The lesson is this: It is very good to share, but do not give all your Dolly Mixtures away-unless you are a Saint or have an unlimited supply, or you hate Dolly Mixtures anyway.

ALL OR NOTHING.

2011-02-02T14:47:00.000-08:00

First published: June12, 2009 6:16 PM

by Moannie

A bottle of salad cream is a metaphor for my attitude to life. It has to be Heinz original, none of this low-calorie stuff in a squeezy bottle. Not that I use it anymore; in this house it has to be a dressing of mustard, vinegar, and extra virgin olive oil on our salads, or home made mayonnaise on our hard boiled eggs.

When I was a child, and in the growing season, before expensive imports and intensive farming, Sunday tea consisted of a salad of lettuce, cucumber, spring onions, radishes, tomato and or boiled beetroot. Each plate would contain a pile of these ingredients and a slice of ham or corned beef, cheese or hard boiled eggs. There would be slices of bread and butter [after the war] and a tinned fruit salad [also after the war] with evaporated milk. Mum would carefully pour a blob of salad cream on each plate, about the size of an old penny, not nearly enough to coat the salad or to allow one to dip the corner of each forkful in. So what I would do was to eat the entire plate of food without touching the salad cream, leaving just one piece of tomato, then, with mouth watering in anticipation, spread the entire blob onto the tomato and eat it. Harry would glare at me, but there was nothing he could attack me for, I had eaten all my salad and if I wanted to eat it dry and save the cream for the final bite, even he kept quiet. My brothers jeered and mother looked scared, as she always did when she thought Harry was angry. One day I did some calculations, asking mum how long she thought the bottle would last... ‘About a month of Sundays’ she answered. Tony was still a baby so that left four of us and the bottle was three quarters full. ‘Could I have my share all in one go?’ I asked; Harry must have been elsewhere or I would not have dared. She looked scared again but had the grace to ask ‘Why?’
‘Well, the way we do it now there is not enough to even taste it properly.’
She thought about it then said ‘No.’ and that was that.

In the Orphanage we would be served thin porridge with a sprinkling of brown sugar. When it was a newly opened bag and the sugar dry the small spoonful would settle and quickly melt like snow on a wet road and it was never enough to sweeten the gruel that cook always over salted. But, once the bag was opened, it quickly hardened and had to be smashed with a rolling pin before being shunted into a bowl for the sister to dole out. If I was in luck I would have a lump of the brown sweet delight, sitting in the middle of my plate like a virgin island surround by a grey sea. Taking up my spoon I would eat the salty gruel as quickly as I could, fighting down the nausea that haunted my daily life, my eyes fixed on the island of delight, determined to eat the ocean before the land melted away. At last I would spoon the sugar and close my mouth and eyes as its delicious sweetness righted my stomach and prickled my eyes with tears of happiness.

I love to anticipate delights. I used to buy my clothes on the “layaway plan”. There was a coat I coveted in a shop in Ramsgate where I was nursing in the fifties. It was a ‘shortie’ and it was yellow and cost £5, a lot of money when you consider my monthly salary was £7. The shopkeeper took the coat out of the window and put my name on it. It took me five months to pay for it at half a crown a week. Had there been such a thing as a credit card I would have taken it away that day, worn it and discarded it well before the five months were up.

I will not buy cheap steak, except for a casserole. We don’t eat it very often but when we do it is a joint of the best sirloin, T-bone steak for a BBQ or fillet for frying. Why buy off cuts of fish unless it is for a pie, or farmed Salmon that is pale pink and wormy from eating its own excrement. Alaskan wild Salmon for us or it is fish fingers.

And I love the same way, unconditionally and wholly. I can’t be doing with half measures. I prefer to be in close physical contact with my children, but if that cannot be then I know that when we are together we will reiterate, shore up, and bask in touch and hugs and smiles and when they go I hope that they take that warmth with them that they felt as babes, in my arms and next to my heart

ENOUGH ALREADY!

2011-01-31T08:11:00.000-08:00

I'm cold! Cold to my bones. I'm wearing thick leggings, socks and my forever Uggs and above the waist three layers,consisting of thermal vest, Cashmere polo and a huge red, yellow and blue Penguin double/double thick knit that I dug out from the bottom drawer and which made only the briefest of appearances last year.

   This has been the coldest winter in eighty years and I will not be surprised - when the people who spend their lives working out these things - tell us that it has also been the grey-est. So low and grey have been the clouds, and so full of nasty freezing rain, that the fire doesn't draw, filling the room with smoke and fumes - obliging us to open a window - rather negating the point of a fire. En plus de ca my resident Frog always leaves a door open after he has exited into the kitchen [where the wall fire is only turned on when we are in it] or when, as he seems to do every five minutes, asks the dog if he wants to 'chase le chat? ' not a euphemism , Milou definitely does have a hate of next doors midnight black cat, the chief suspect killer of the dead birds we find occasionally. Or perhaps Milou might want to 'pipi?' or simply have a bark at anyone who dares to walk on the pavement on the other side of the hedge. For whatever reason, JP will open the door from the sitting room and hold it gaping wide as he opens the door into the freezing garden to let the dog out [he probably was simply asking, in his canine way, for his supper, or a scratch, or perhaps was thinking 'Why are you here?']
   The point is that it is he, JP, guardian of the purse, who seldom feels the cold, who surreptitiously turns off the radiators the moment a ray of sunshine pierces the gloom, who curses every time he has to clear out the dead ash, cut the wood, replenish the log basket and bring in the coal -he it is who leaves bloody doors open - letting out the heat which is costing an arm and a leg to slightly [it is a big space] warm up the room.
   Of course I complain, or else I shiver dramatically and sigh, moving him to drape a blanket over me, wrap another scarf around my neck, or, more likely, simply tell me to get up and move about...though not in those exact words.

   Now I am a 'have it today and damn tomorrow' kind of girl, er, woman. This cold spell cannot last much longer, can it? So we will be over budget on heating this winter...so what? We will save on something else, his cheese, for instance or the French bread that costs an arm and a leg. He counters with 'Your cigs?'

   Impasse!

   I swear that if, when warmer weather finally does arrive, I will not once complain about the heat, nor will I ever moan again about the wretched fly, the one that I cannot catch, that buzzes around the room the entire summer, mocking me.

LET ME COUNT THE REASONS

2011-01-25T14:51:00.000-08:00

It has been brought to my attention that JP doesn't always get the respect from me, that he so obviously deserves; mostly by those of you who have not been with me from the beginning, and so for that reason I decided to re-post this, from early 2009. With a minor change.

by Moannie

Fifty ~~one~~ five years we have lasted. There has to be a reason other than, well, habit, I thought, and, keeping note book and pen to hand began to make a list.

1. He knows how a washing machine works and uses it. He has never thrown dirty clothes on to the floor expecting me to pick 'em up and launder them.

2. He irons without diminishing his masculinity in the least. In fact he is at his most attractive when wielding an iron.

3. He ran for me once...and he never runs. In a crisis he walks very quickly.

4. He still pronounces Shakespeare and Sherlock Holmes-Shakeass-peare and Sheltock Hol mess, and calls a sheet a shit.

5. He takes pride in my achievements.

6. He washes the dishes after every meal. He says 'You cook, I wash.'

7. He kisses the back of my neck and says I smell the same as I did when me met.

8. He does not appear to see the ravages of time on my face.

9. He has beautiful hands.

10. And handwriting.

11. His feet never smell.

12. He honours his father and his mother.

13. He took care of my mother.

14. And in so doing moved to England and settled down here.

15. He still retains his Frenchness.

16. He never fails to compliment the chef...moi.

17. He watched every minute of my graduation ceremony without moving from the edge of his seat; even during the long, rather boring speeches.

18. And he wore a tie.

19. He buys me flowers almost every week.

20. He loves to shop for groceries [like that he gets to buy the cheeses he prefers]

Now if the preceding list makes JP out to be some paragon of virtue do not be misled. I just might make the time to write out another list containing his many faults and failings. Meanwhile, men, don't hate him as setting the bar too high, I have probably exaggerated in his favour, after all he is helping me towards a new PC and a girls gotta do, etc. etc.

100 words game.

2011-01-24T07:40:00.001-08:00

Using Mr.London Street's game for a rant.

Add- ons which have no place in a sentence

Innit. [Not only is it lazy English, but it is a Question

that never receives an answer]

See you later. [When it is never going to happen]

You know. [Is this a question or a statement of fact?]

Like.

You know what I mean, Yeah?

Don’t it? [how lazy can you get?]

And he says-

She says-

I says-

As in, ‘so she says I did it and I didn’t, like. D’ya know what I mean, like?’

A lot of these numbskulls work in Call centres.

I hate, hate hate it!

Procrastination is the thief of time...

2011-01-21T09:16:00.000-08:00

No 1 and only son called me the other day and asked me to hurry up and get the pictures together for The Family History. Not a small undertaking, and one that I have been putting off for some time. I finished the book almost three years ago and it sits, in his computer and mine, safe and sound, waiting for him to find the time to put it all together and get it printed.

NOAOS is a graphic designer. He has been very busy, building up his business while enduring three knee operations and a lot of pain. Perhaps he thinks he had better finish the job before we peg out, hence the phone call.

Trouble is, all the photos are EVERYWHERE.

In Boxes, envelopes, albums,

in frames

or simply stuck on walls.

I read through the draft and started to make a list, got to number 43 before deciding there had to be a better way.

I am going to look through every box, envelope, album etc.. and make another pile containing any picture that rings a bell. That should only take a few hours, like ten or twelve.

But there is a problem. Like with the picture below, they each have a tale to tell. And I'll never get the job done.

A quickie then:

This is my great-great grandmother, Granny Gregory. At the window of the room in which she spent the last few years of her life, in the house of her youngest daughter-in-law, married to her son Teddy. This next bit is taken from The History.

I have no recollection of school then, but as Granny had to go to work we were obliged to find something to occupy the hours until she returned. We would go down the road and visit with great granny Gregory sometimes. Just a short visit because she was very old by then and slept a great deal. She lived in a small room that smelled of talcum powder and lavender water, in the house belonging to Aunt Rose who was married to granny Young’s brother, Teddy. I believe Teddy was quite successful at whatever he did, because we seldom saw him out of his working clothes of suit and black overcoat. He wore a Homburg hat and was very tall and serious. He had a large car that we were forbidden to touch.[Perhaps he was an undertaker]

Great granny looked rather like the old Queen Victoria. She always wore a long black dress with a white lace collar and a square of lace sat on her swept up white hair. She would offer us a biscuit but usually forgot and nodded off to sleep before she had delivered. We would giggle and creep out of the room. I think we probably went to see whether she would ever remove the lid off the tin or if sleep would win.

I don't think The History will be ready this side of Christmas.

COLOUR ME GREY

2011-01-17T14:26:00.000-08:00

This is the gloomy view I see most days.
[ all these pictures enlarge with a click; marvellously clever, eh?]

Only mid-January now and grey February still to come.
So I thought we all needed some colour to remind us how it was, and how it soon will be again.
Some pictures from last summer's garden, and round and about.

Lavender, my favourite flower.

We have been told we are losing our Bumble bees, I think they are all in my garden.

A rose from the bush given to us on our golden wedding anniversary.

Buddleia: the butterfly bush, aptly named.

One of many pots of Geraniums. And only ever the red ones.

Promises, promises!

This is how I want my view to look.

J.P. and Milou taking in the view.

Buttering you up.

2011-01-15T07:21:00.000-08:00


The King asked                    The Queen, and The Queen asked The Dairymaid: "Could we have some butter for The Royal slice of bread?" The Queen asked the Dairymaid, The Dairymaid Said, "Certainly, I'll go and tell the cow Now Before she goes to bed." The Dairymaid She curtsied, And went and told the Alderney: "Don't forget the butter for The Royal slice of bread." The Alderney said sleepily: "You'd better tell His Majesty That many people nowadays Like marmalade Instead." The Dairymaid Said "Fancy!" And went to Her Majesty. She curtsied to the Queen, and She turned a little red: "Excuse me, Your Majesty, For taking of The liberty, But marmalade is tasty, if It's very Thickly Spread." The Queen said "Oh!" And went to his Majesty: "Talking of the butter for The royal slice of bread, Many people Think that Marmalade Is nicer. Would you like to try a little Marmalade Instead?" The King said, "Bother!" And then he said, "Oh, deary me!" The King sobbed, "Oh, deary me!" And went back to bed. "Nobody," He whimpered, "Could call me A fussy man; I only want A little bit Of butter for My bread!" The Queen said, "There, there!" And went to The Dairymaid. The Dairymaid Said, "There, there!" And went to the shed. The cow said, "There, there! I didn't really Mean it; Here's milk for his porringer And butter for his bread." The queen took the butter And brought it to His Majesty. The King said "Butter, eh?" And bounced out of bed. "Nobody," he said, As he kissed her Tenderly, "Nobody," he said, As he slid down The banisters, "Nobody, My darling, Could call me A fussy man - BUT I do like a little bit of butter to my bread!"

-- A A Milne
NOW WE ARE SIX
I love this bit of nonsense as I love all the works of AA Milne. This came back to me last night. Having first been woken up by JP's nightly shout...last nights was all about Credit cards, Bills and turning off lights - [he was asleep...it is a nightly occurrance] and then his snoring, which though noisy, at least showed me he was in a deep sleep and the nightly yelling was over- I was wide awake. It was then that I remembered another poem...after AA Milne written by the brilliant Christopher Matthew in his book NOW WE ARE SIXTY [AND A BIT] It is called I WISH [after IF I WERE KING]
I often wish that I were dead,Instead of lying here in bed
And torturing my silly headWith everything from A to Z:
With germs and poisons being spread,And all that blood so freely shed,
And why we're all so badly led,And who should do the job instead,
And what it was my wife/hubs once saidAbout what's in the garden shed,
And what became of poor old Ted,And, while I think about it, Fred,
And why I am not better read,And should I move to Leatherhead?
I often wish that I were dead,And free from mortal fear and dread.
But here I am, tucked up in bed,Hanging by a tiny thread.

So today, I took down my two volumes of Christopher Matthew's modern take on A.A. Milne [a gift from number one and only son for my 60th birthday]and found his version of THE KING'S BREAKFAST. It's called THE QUEENS PICKLE.It was written around the time when the Queen asked for more money from the Civil Purse.
The Duke askedThe Queen, andThe Queen askedThe Chancellor:'Could one have some extraFor the Royal Board and Bed?The Queen rang the Chancellor,The ChancellorSaid, 'Prudence, Ma'am,I'll go and thinkTankBefore they all see red.'
The ChancellorThought 'Sod it,'And rang the boysAt Demos.'Any chance of extraFor the Royal Board and Bed?'
The Demos boysSaid, 'Joking!You can go and tellHer MajestyThe thinking now is favouringA President instead.
The ChancellorSaid, 'Thrifty!'And went toHer Majesty.He winked with his good eye andSaid, 'I'm not well bred.Pardon me not bowing,But the on dit in the countryIs that private life is pleasant ifIt's comfortablyLed.'
The QueenSaid, 'Eeeow,'And went toSee Edinburgh.'You mentioned some extra forThe Royal Board and Bed.According toYoung GordonRetiringIs an option.Would one care to try someRetirementInstead?'
The Duke said,'Bollocks!And then he said,'Oh bugger it!The Duke yelled, 'Bastards!'And went brick red.'Nobody,'He barked,'Could call meDifficult,But frankly,Put it this way,I'd be betterOrf dead.'
The Queen snapped,'Philip!'And carpetedThe Chancellor.The ChancellorSaid, 'Now, now,Careful how you tread.We in New LabourAre hardlyPro-Monarchy,Push your luck, you'll end upIn a council house instead.
The Queen said,'Cobblers!'And called upHer bankers.The Manager said,'Money, ma'am?You're hardly in the red.''Good,' said the QueenAs she tripped on a corgi.'Great,' said the DukeAs he kissed his wifeTenderly.'Stuff'em,'they saidAs they drove down to Windsor.'When one's asRich as we are,One's one's own Way Ahead!'
All this is to give you a smile and to let you know that [a]we are all entitled to some butter on our bread. [b] To urge you to read All of the books mentioned and [c]funny stuff is always funny.

IT PAYS TO BE A LITTLE GAGA

2011-01-12T14:36:00.000-08:00

We have been trying to sort out car insurance. What usually happens is that the Company we use sends us a reminder well in advance of expiry date, JP reads the new quote, swears a wee bit then writes a cheque and sends it off...job done. This year Saz was down with us and she was horrified that we didn't 'Shop around' for a cheaper quote. The fact of the matter is that, although I am getting to be quite the expert on Bloggy things like linking, cutting and pasting, down-loading pics. etc., the finer points of the Internet are pretty much lost on me, and JP. has abandoned his Mobile phone as too complicated.

Bear with me folks.....

That afternoon Saz sat down at Paco's keyboard and looked through the Compare sites and found a policy that was, not only cheaper than the third party policy we had, but was fully Comprehensive. She spoke to our Insurance Company and they agreed to match it.

Still there...?

She left the next day and JP sent off a cheque and we waited for a cover note.
Then it was Christmas and the world shut down for a week or more, seeing as the New Year insisted on arriving.

He phoned and spoke to...Shiboogamo [sounded like] Cheque had not arrived...three days to go before expiry date.

Hey Ho. 5th January. JP Phoned again...spoke to Dean. 'Yes Sir, your cheque has arrived but unfortunately
the policy had expired and we cannot give you that deal.'

JP.When did it arrive?
Dean. The third Sir.
JP. But I sent the cheque on the 27th of December.
Dean. You must make a complaint to the Post Office.

I did make a complaint and was told that it was not the fault of the Post Office,they only collected the mail, it was delivered by the Royal Mail.

JP. So, how much more is it going to cost me?
Dean. We have your cheque for £144. we need another £44.

He wrote the cheque and I posted it that morning, with signed proof of posting.

Today, the 11th of January we received a policy from the Company that stated we now had Third Party Insurance on our vehicle as well as another envelope containing the information that our policy had expired and did we want to renew it. Plus renewed membership with spanking new cards, of the well known Club with the yellow vans...a membership JP had cancelled because they had demanded £190.

Girding his loins he sat at the kitchen table surrounded by thirty two pages of requests, demands and pamphlets that told us of the joys of membership,of their unfailing devotion to their members and their willingness to be 'there for us'.

I hovered...tea and ciggies to hand.

Are you still there...?

Give him his due, JP kept it together, though at first he did sound a touch righteous. He explained the background, going into great detail, his voice rising a bit as he listened to his own tale of woe.
I made writing gestures...'get the name' I hissed. He wrote Joshz down on one of the many bits of paper.

'Oh,zat's good, you are a sweetie...' I heard him say. 'T'ank you...yes, I'll hold.'
To me he said...'She's really nice...just checking the details.'
'She is a he,' I hissed. He shook his head then turned back to the phone as he/she came back. The voice spoke for some time and I leaned in pulling the phone out so that I could hear. OK, so it wasn't Basso profundo but nor was it falsetto; it was one of those male voices that sound too feminine for a male voice and too masculine for it to be female. It was definitely male. and the name was Josh.

'You are a darling...they should make you the boss.' JP was beaming... 'Thank you'.
I withered, knowing worse was to come...
'You are a lovely lady...'
I'm semaphoring now, arms windmilling, head shaking...'It's a man, dummy.' He finally caught on and went into gaga mode.

'Zat you 'ave managed to work out my bad Englieesh, when I so do not hear or speak too well, and ze phone crackle and pop.'

I'm on my knees with my fist in my mouth and tears spurting from my eyes by the time he hung up.

Not only did he/she fix us up with the original Fully Comprehensive policy we had originally agreed, she arranged for the £190 for membership we did not want, to be refunded.

And so ended a saga that had lasted three weeks.

It pays to be Gaga, and to find a guy/girl named Josh.

Dr. Quack Quack

2011-01-08T06:55:00.000-08:00

I haven't been there so I don't know how I would act, or how far I would go. To be that ill, that desperate for a cure, a release from pain. Would I have taken a chance for my children? I cannot say. But when a friend of my mother told her that Dr. N. could help her she begged me, us, to take her to see him.
At first I refused, I had no faith in unorthodox medical practices. I was afraid he could make things worse.

Mother had MS, walked unsteadily with a Zimmer frame, still had the use of her upper body and, with steely determination, still controlled all bodily functions, but she suffered excruciating pain when her limbs went into spasm. It was as if life was leaving her body from her toes upwards. Her speech never slurred, her eyes remained blue and as unclouded as her mind; razor sharp, determined to find a way out of her prison before the door slammed shut on her.

Her friend, Betty, came round to see us in the little cottage we lived in at that time, a summer rental that sheltered our small family all year round. She said we owed it to Mother, that Dr. N. had cured her arthritis, relieved her pain. If I were any kind of loving daughter I could not refuse my mother the chance that he might help.

We wavered. We had little money,and I was not convinced, but I could not deny her.

Dr. N. lived in a picture perfect cottage, in a picturesque village about an hours drive away. The journey there was broken by a number of stops [when mum had to go, she had to go] and we were late for our appointment. The long path to the rose covered front door sloped downwards between beds of summer flowers and with the birds singing and bees humming our spirits were lifted.
An elderly woman answered the door and showed us into a beamed living room with an obligatory Inglenook fireplace and ancient ceiling beams. Dr. N. came forward to greet us, taking mum's arm and leading her gently towards a chair set behind a table that was lined with various metal boxes, cotton wool and a Bunsen burner.

He was an elderly man [later we found out he was eighty eight] with thick white hair and moustache, tanned clear skin and a compact body. He asked mum a lot of questions but wrote nothing down, examined her feet and legs, her neck and shoulders and, holding her hands and looking intensely into her eyes, asked where the pain was centered. Somewhere on her lower back, to the right, she replied.
He asked me to stand in front of her and hold up her clothes whilst he prodded and probed, finally happy that he had located the spot.

I looked at mum's face and she was smiling, no fear, no doubt in her eyes.
I asked him what he was going to do but he didn't answer straight away. He lit the burner and held a small three sided knife to the flame.
'I will cut the nerve to relieve the pain' he said, quietly and calmly, as if that was an ordinary occurrence and nothing to fear. I know my face expressed my horror at that point, JP's face showed the same emotion.

'It is fine.' mum said. 'I trust the doctor.'

Dr. N. pressed the knife into mother's back to a depth of two inches and drew it up and down and to both sides to make a cross. There was very little blood. He withdrew the knife and moved it higher and made to plunge it in again.

'No!' I shouted it out. 'No more, mum, this is not going to help.' I rearranged her clothes and helped her up. JP put some money on the table and we left. As we exited he said, 'Blame your daughter if you have no relief'.

She was cross with me for a while and there was no relief, nor, I believe would there have been had I let the barbarism continue. She continued the creeping loss of all her faculties, for another twenty five years, but with brain, spirit, sight and speech intact.

Turns out that Dr. N. had some renown as a scientist, having discovered some chemical or other. But to me, saving my guilt, he was always, Dr. Quack quack.