Admiration: an A to Z meme

Yesterday I held a cup cradled in both my hands. It’s huge and used to be my Granddad’s favourite for his early morning cuppa. I recovered it from the dusty old barn; one of the myriad of forgotten things that have lain waiting for me this past decade.
Its liberation could not have been more apt for on July 6 1910, one hundred years ago my Granddad was born. I’d like to say we celebrated yesterday and that he got a telegram from the Queen but he’s been dead for 18 years now.
I wonder if anyone in the family bar me even noted the significance of the date, for I don’t think my Granddad endeared himself to his sons, although I adored him and he me. With him I could be who I was, just me, and his love and that of my Grandmother, was unconditional.
Over the years since he passed my eyes have been opened to the sort of man he was; I don’t think the portrait is particularly flattering but however much I learn, the love I hold for him remains untarnished.
I accept he was hard on his sons, too hard. I accept he was difficult and sometimes seemed snobbish. He was tricky and sarcastic his wit was razor sharp. He loved beautiful women and adored flirting. He was a man of his time impossibly glamorous and very aware of himself.
He liked things just so and had high standards. He was very ambitious socially and yet always utterly polite to everyone. Affable to strangers, welcoming, warm.
He didn’t suffer fools and could be very cutting and like many of us he hated to be told he was wrong. He was proud. And he wanted the best.
As a young man he was an excellent sportsman, hunting shooting and fishing. But by the age of 40 or there abouts he contracted polio and became wheelchair bound. I never really noticed it to be honest but there again why should I? He was, as far as I was concerned, always in a wheel chair.
Now imagine what it must have been like especially then in the 1950s. People talking above his head, asking my Grandmother if he took sugar in his tea. I kid you not! This for a man who’d gone to University, fought in the war, played Rugger at an almost professional level and held down an important job for Courthaulds?!
Is it any wonder he was frustrated? Is it any wonder he pushed his sons? You could almost say though that whatever they did unless they were feted as the best by the world, they would never have been good enough. That I think is the greatest tragedy of my Grandfather’s illness. Not that he could no longer do the things he was used to, but that by not doing them he could never understand the processes of ageing, of not being as good as he once was at things. For him his legs ceased to be at the height of their powers, he was aged and wizened before his time, over night.
It didn’t stop his hopes and dreams, it didn’t stop his ambition, it didn’t stop his zeal. He had to try harder and work harder. It did not make him popular and frequently made people angry. However, I feel that if he had two legs people would have admired him more for all these traits and if he had had two legs he would have been kinder because then he would have been able to afford to be.

This is an A to Z meme of short essays looking at the people/places/things in life that make it varied and wonderful. Feel free to join in. A is for Admiration. Next Sunday it will be B for Belief.

Not knowing what I want...

For months now I've not known what I want from my marriage. I try to think of the things I don't want: to be patronised, to be told what to do all the time to be criticised for being too negative, too messy, too disorganised, too grumpy, too forgetful.
These are not things that have just happend they seem to have always been there. And it is not as if he his a bad man far from it but we have drifted from being lovers and friends to being parents and strangers. The lovers bit has been strained for many years before the boys were born because as I have said to him I want an accomplice not another father - he just doesn't get it. I don't need a knight in shining armour I neet a partner in crime.
I did try I tried so hard and now I just feel tried out. He says I've been sulking these last few days. I said I have not far from it; he says then I've been cross. Well no shit Sherlock! But to call me cross would be futile for I haven't got the energy to be cross with him. I don't feel any anger - I feel nothing really.
He sent me an e-mail saying we have to discuss the situation and why don't we do it at this really amazing restaurant. When I read it I thought here we go; I'll say no and then he'll say well don't say I didn't try to take you somewhere nice! But for F**ks sake do I have to go to these great lengths just to be taken out to a decent restaurant! Sorry just to be taken out!!?? You guessed it when I said this evening why did we have to go out to disucss the situation he got all on his high horse about him taking me out basicaly meaning I should be grateful. I said it seemed stupid for me to go to all this trouble...that's when he asaid I was sulking. I replied that he only said these things to make himself feel better and to allow him to square his conscience so he could prove to himself that I was the unreasonable party. I also called him a t****r but not when he could hear. Somehow it felt good.
But gettng back to the point at hand what do I want? Do I want to leave him? What with two boys, no career to speak of and no savings - are you joking? What choice do I have! Of course I have to stay. So it's a case of on what terms...and that is just what Idon't know. I do like him, I have been in love with him, I just don't think I am now.
So all of you wonderful people out there forgive me for not respondng to you, for not visiting as I should. I thnk I need to prioritise. It would just be so much easier if I knew what I wanted.

Cybermummy: Lasting impressions...

Of nerves and nervous laughter
Tentative smiles and shy hellos
Of squeaks of recognition
Connections made and fear let go

Of loud and raucous laughter
A cacaphony of sound
Of old friends just recognized
And new ones just found

Of lessons and of learning
Search Engine Optimisation
Of Twitter and of tweeting
New ways of Communication

Of faces and of voices
Standing up there in our stead
Of bringing a new meaning
To the words that we just read

Of listening and of hearing
Tales of laughter and of sorrow
Of wishing that the day of course
Could start again tomorrow…

Cybermummy: It's a nightmare and it's not even open yet!

We all look suitably wide eyed and worried at least the two or three women I've seen wandering slightly self consciously round the foyer. We've passed each other and coyly lifted our gaze as we pass, a tentative smile on our lips and a frantically beseeching look in our eye; Help! it says. But we're English and we pass by; it's too early yet. In fact there is an hour and a half to go!
I've sought solace in a high backed sofa on the opposite side of the entrance so I can spot in peace. They drift in in ones at present no gaggle yet laughing raucously and chatting too loud. Just the ones who no doubt have travelled half the length and breadth of the country to get here and land up being far too early. Oh the embarrassment...
Some come in full of confidence others slightly more nervously self consciously flicking their hair:
Her: Excuse me can you point me in the direction of the ladies?
Ah the haven of the ladies loos...
Here comes another one, more confident striding through the foyer definately knows where she is going and bouyed by the thought that if launch myself from the sofa I too can wing it and those on the otherside of the double doors will never know that I am not as confident as I seem; here goes...
8.45am: Bollocks crashed and burned. I return to the bonkette and want to curl up and die. OK it's not that serious but my tummy is doing flips and I so wanted to seem to know what the heck I was doing too.
8.47am; Have just finished a call with Dear Charlie and confessed my sins. I couldn't face a the tube on the way over so undulged in a taxi. The problem with having a husband who works in London and uses taxis is that he knows to the penny how much I spent.
Him: What £20 or £30 quid. No lunch for you then!
Bollocks I hate it when he does that makes me feel I complete spendthrift. Problem is I am. The cost fo the Taxi was nearly as much as the train journey on the way down...
8.50am; This is getting bad. Am now surrounded by Japanese tourists. Teenage Japanese tourists and am definitley going to be sick. Great wafts of manly aftershave and sherbert scented perfume envelop me.
8.52 am: Decide to go and blog to take my mind off things. Land up having to use computer with screen facing the door. Terrified people will see and feel ludicrously embarrassed again. Shit the computer freezes on me and my blog page is glowing for all to see. Die die die I want to die! I pluck up courage to ask the deliciosuly geeky boy next door to me to help he's gorgeously kind to a demented old bat and suggests I ask for help. Well I did and thought all young men knew about computers. Needless to say I spend time closing down the screen whenever people walk behind me so they cannot see. God this is difficult! Will people stop looking over my shoulder. Techno guy pops his head in and switches on the screen again for all to see. I want to spread myself across it to keep it from prying eyes. Oh thank heavens I am on and off so to speak...please dear god may the day get better...
Getting very loud in the foyer. Better gird my loins and off I go
Wish me luck!

Nerves....

My heart is racing and my mouth feels dry I cannot concentrate and I jitter –it’s just nerves. Yesterday it manifested itself in a full blown panic attack and I was unable to travel up to London to do a face-to-face interview but the good news is at least I wasn’t sick.

I was able to carry out the interview via the telephone so to be honest no one lost out, I mean if they were actually to see me well my cover would well and truly be blown. How can anyone take a frumpy fat forty year old seriously especially if she turns up in jeans and an ill fitting T-shirt? I swear these were the ONLY things in my wardrobe I felt I could possibly be seen in for anything else would be far too humiliating. All my old work clothes are juts that OLD and out of date. Not so old as to be vintage but old enough to make you cringe and that’s before you realise they make anyone over 30 look like mutton dressed up as lamb. I no longer have the legs for it, actually I never did have the legs for it, but at least I was young!

Now I wait to go up to London again and wonder if I will be sick with apprehension. No I really do mean I will be sick, I usually am. It started when I was laughingly called a cub reporter and I had a rather dubious experience on my first solo interview. In those days and possibly now there was a tension between advertising and editorial. In that advertising would tear their hair out if editorial wrote something that upset the advertisers and editorial would get equally frustrated about being told what they could and could not write. Somewhere amongst all that, one had to keep a balance. Usually editorial won out because that is the integrity of the magazine and without integrity why on earth would anyone want to read it. Anyway, I was to interview one of the magazine’s top advertisers and also one of the top dogs in the food manufacturing world. I was meant to be going along with our senior reporter but she called in sick at the last minute and because it was such an important interview I had to go on my own. It was a lunch at Chelsea Wharf in a very exclusive restaurant. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to eat and write at the same time but I needn’t have worried about that because I landed up having to worry about SO much more.

Having travelled down from god knows where this 40 year old director decided it was time to have fun and I was basically served up to him on a dish. Try as I might to get the interview all he was interested in was touching me up under the table cloth and whisper revolting things to me in my ear. And I was SO stupid all I could do was try to carry doing the interview and look beseechingly at the waiters hoping that they might rescue me but they didn’t. Perhaps they thought they had seen it all before and this was some sort of sex game the both of us played; me being all coy and him getting more turned on but trying to do it discreetly before we rushed off to some hotel where they turned a blind eye to couples hiring room for the day.

You’d have thought by the end of the meal I would have been desperate to escape but back in 1989 Chelsea Wharf wasn’t exactly easy to get to and there were no taxi’s to be had, even if I did had the money to pay for one. In fact I had no money at all as in my rush to get to the interview I had left my purse behind. He did apologise to me and offered me a lift back to Charring Cross and can you credit it because he apologized I thought he meant it and gratefully accepted the lift. Well you can guess that he pounced on me the minute we were in the car. I got really angry and told him very very forcefully to pack it in and drive me to the station. Like a lamb he did as he was told. How was I to know he thought it all a game? I just wanted to get back home. I spent the 45 minute drive to Charring Cross slapping his hand away from my thigh and telling him that I would not go to the movies with him and that I didn’t care if he did know a great little club in Soho however discreet it was. I felt such a fool and I felt increasingly nervous about what I was going to say to my editor for not getting a story and what on earth I was going to say to my publisher if I pissed this man off – I mean he might never advertise again!

Ever since that day whenever I had to go and do interviews I was always sick before hand, sometimes I suffered chronic panic attacks  and would be found hyperventilating in the loos of a variety of up market and exclusive hotels and restaurants in London. I have no idea why I carried on; perhaps I am some sort of masochist. I don’t think it ever crossed my mind not to do the job I did. Needless to say I wasn’t a very good reporter but there again I wasn’t too bad either. I wonder sometimes what would have happened to me if I never had gone to that interview…

Anyway tomorrow I go up to London for a Conference one I should enjoy and even though I know it is highly doubtful anyone will try to touch me up or anything daft like that I am still full of nerves, I’ll try not to be sick but if I look kinda wild eyed and jumpy please bear with me once I am in the swing of it all I’ll be perfectly normal…honest!

It’s getting way too HOT round here…

Everywhere I look there are tanned fit male bodies; it makes it a little difficult to concentrate. For as much as I try to avert my gaze I find it nigh on impossible. They are just flaunting themselves. I know they don’t mean to and that it is just because it is so hot but I do wish they’d consider the feelings of the poor old forty something woman who is employing them. You see I am old enough to know better but still young enough to remember those glorious days of freedom pre-children, pre-husband and well basically pre-sagginess.
So it’s not as if I could indulge in a bit of flirtation. I mean if I tried, apart from dazzling them with the whiteness of my skin and not in a good Twilight sort of way, more of a blancmange one, I think I would be had up for harassment and then I’d never get anything done around here!
On the plus side it’s not as if any of these men are young. In fact they are all older than me, but they are fit. I mean really fit and tanned. I suppose that is a good thing; there is hope for the over forty men out there, especially if they work with their hands….sorry outside. And there is another thing about these older men: they exude confidence in what they do and I am a sucker for a man who knows what he is doing. After eight years of builders, I promise it is a thrill to see a man able to handle lime mortar in the way it should be handled. The deft quick movements of the trowel, the synchronicity of laying each hand made brick perfectly with the care and precision of a true perfectionist. Each movement is spare and lithe and one is drawn to gaze at the play of muscles across shoulders and backs. The skin on their arms is oiled and tanned contrasting against the peculiar vulnerability of the strangely youthful flesh revealed once shirt and t-shirts are removed. I can understand why artists and sculptors were so enthralled by the male form for it is hauntingly beautiful and way too distracting!
I mean I am a married woman thoughts like these should not intrude upon my daily life. I blame it on the heat! It’s way too hot round here…

A matter of self preservation...

Do you ever feel slightly overawed by organised people? You know the ones who seem to have life sussed and have time and money to do the nice things in life like have their nails done professionally. You know grown-ups.
Well I ain't ever going to be one of those people. It just isn't me and I can try with all my might to be organised and sussed and it just won't work. I think I lack the will or else I am clinging all too tightly on to the fact that I really don't want to grow up at all.
I have never wanted to grow up. At the age of seven I asked my Mum if it was possible to grow down and stay seven years old forever. She didn't take me seriously.
So it comes as rather a shock to realise that as well as growing up, even if somewhat reluctantly, I am also the mother of a seven year old. And a four year old.
It seems as though my life has happened by accident and I haven't really had any input at all. I am sort of bowled along in the wake of myself and I wonder has anyone noticed?
Good God! People might think I do this on purpose, that I have a plan. I promise I am making it all up as a go along, well actaully I am not just doing that I am actively lying about it to make it seem like I sort of know what I am doing and where I am going.
I do believe this makes me more flexible in the long run able to nimbly alter the direction of life but I have a funny feeling that as I get older and the detrius of my life, in terms of husband, children, dogs, cats, chickens, house, garden and other hangers on, gets more complicated, I am about as nimble as a tanker on the high seas trying to avoid a flotilla of small ships.
I fear the time has come to grow up. It's not a matter of wanting to, it's a matter of self preservation. But I so don't want to, it seems like such a lot of hard work and there are so many other things I want to do! Although I cannot name any in particular right now, but they are there...
I have been doing the big clear out, the grown up thing in my attempt to get better organised and sussed, and I will admit it does make me feel good. It's not quite been done in 30 days but I am over the hump and at the end of it at least I will know where everything is and what we have got. To all intents and purposes that is quite grown up don't you think? You never know the next thing I might do is nip down the beauty parlor...

And if you want to read how everyone else in teh Juen Personal Challenge did why not pop over to Tiddlyompompom!

I think I am a little chicken...

It’s way past my bedtime and I have been making respite homes for poults – young chickens - in the dark. To be honest chickens, especially when they get to that rather ugly teenage stage, aren’t that attractive or even endearing to look at, but for some unknown reason over the last eight or so years I have become rather fond of them.

It took me ages to even touch one and now I am making dens for them in the middle of the night so that they are safe and feel protected and I am not sure that that is really what I should be doing. But let’s just say that when you see six young chickens all covwering in a corner without any shelter because two fat old hens won’t let them in the hut there is only one thing to do…

You know this chicken keeping lark well it just happened. When we came up here in 2001 we just inherited them, a bunch of wild chickens and over time we sort of became attached. We renovated a Victorian chicken hut and they sort of moved in. we introduced some fancy cockerels and they sort of well bred and then we got serious without ever meaning to. Now we have Fat Boys, ones we intend to kill and eat. We have the girls, those we keep for eggs and then we get waifs and strays and I cannot say no even though I know I should. For heaven sake I even had to register with DEFRA as my flock grew to over 50.

I dread to think how much money I have spent on them I probably eat THE most expensive eggs in the country but there is one thing I can say they do taste delicious and I am not the only person who says so – egg connoisseurs from as far afield as Yorkshire and London agree. Even a few individuals from across the pond…

So perhaps I am not as bonkers as I think I am….

Bringing up Boys: Bedtime battles

"Mummy what is Bog Boy doing at the top of the stairs?"
**$5$"£! Yes what IS he doing? I shoot out of the sitting room and bound up the stairs to witness exactly what my youngest is getting up to, and there he is out cold as only small boys can be. Fast asleep, on his back, arms above his head just like he used to do as a baby.
I catch The Boys eye and we stifle a giggle.
"Boy, I have no idea why he is here but I think I'd better put him back in bed don't you?"
He is so heavy and so out cold I don't think he notices the shift at all. It is the culmination of a very, very tiring and trying evening.
Bog Boy has taken to asserting himself and he will repeat his demands forcefully until he gets the answer he requires. I am beginning to just say yes and then reneging on all promises forced from me. As you can imagine I do not rank high in his estimation at present.
He has decided that he no longer likes Nursery and prefers to go to school along with his big brother which he is allowed to do two days a week in preparation for moving up to Reception next year.
So every evening I get:
Bog Boy: "Where am I going tomorrow Mummy?"
Me: "To Nursery darling..."
Bog Boy: "Which Nursery Mummy? School Nursery or Nursery Nursery?"
Me: "To Nursery Nursery darling..."
Bog Boy: "I don't want to go to Nursery Nursery Mummy!"
Me: "If you want to go to School Nursery you have to go to Nursery Nursery Bog Boy, you know the rules..." The rules have been reiterated every day at least five tiems a day ever since he started to make his feeling clear about going to school.
Bog Boy: "But I don't want to!"
Me: "OK Bog Boy but you will not be able to go to School Nursery..."
Bog Boy: "But I want to!"
Me: "Well you know the rules, darling..."
By this time I am usually tidying up his room ready for him to go to bed. I ignore the whining and try to distract him but he's not my son for nothing. He tries again
Bog Boy: "Where am I going tomorrow Mummy?"
I ignore him.
Bog Boy: "Mummy where am I going?"
I ignore him again. He really hates this and gets very adamant.
Bog Boy: "Mummy! Where. Am. I. Going?"
I ignore him and wish him good night and trundle off to get The Boy sorted.
I am haunted by his demands to go to school. He shouts. He screams. He bursts into tears.
He trots downstairs to lure me out and put him back to bed. I do so begrudgingly. He makes his feelings known in no uncertain terms. I bark at him and stomp back down stairs feeling a total heel.
He stomps down the stairs after me. I bark again and tell him to get thee hence to His. Own. Room. On. His. OWN!
I hear nothing more and presume that all is well until...
"Mummy what is Bog Boy doing at the top of the stairs?"

PS: Want tocheck out some Bad Mommy Moments then go HERE courtesy of the lovely Gappy at Single Parenthood who was hosting this weeks BMB Carnival. It's brilliant!

Interrogation

I’d like to say it’s not often that I talk about myself but that would be lying as I am always talking about myself. I am my own specialised topic and would  score highly on Mastermind but every now and then you get an opportunity to think of yourself a bit differently. The wonderful Lou at Archers at the Larches has tagged five bloggers for interrogation. The questions are left of field and have really got me thinking: What would I do with David Cameron? Snog, Marry or Avoid?

1. Snog, Marry, Avoid: (this exam question relates either to David Cameron or President Obama?)

Let’s be shallow; on looks alone I’d be lucky if I ever got the chance. In terms of character, or how I perceive his character to be based upon the countless articles, news stories, features and interviews that I come across, I’d say he was a keeper. He comes across as straight forward, honest, and realistic. He’s the sort of guy my Mum would have swooned over if I’d ever brought him home as a potential boyfriend.

But looking back on those years he is exactly the sort of boy I would have known to avoid like the plague, having fallen foul of the social mores that the majority with his background navigated as easily as they breathed. I was never good working out what was done and not done, despite having had a similarly privileged background, and subsequently I was severely put down and largely ridiculed as a galumphing, slightly inept, nervous teenager. It all sounds very Jilly Cooper.

2. What's the worst Christmas present you've ever received?

It has got to be the bright yellow silk shirt given by a supposedly close member of the family. It was foul and so obviously bought without any thought at all. I really believe that if you cannot think what to buy a person don’t buy them anything at all or else swallow your pride and ask them what they would like. In fact always ask and if you cannot go directly to them because you have to  go round the houses pretending you know and love them so well that you can mind read, ask the next best person who knows them what they’d like because nothing is so awful as a present that is useless, unattractive and given without care. It is insulting as well as wasteful.

As you have no doubt realised I have had more than one revolting present in my life and I had better stop there before I explode!

3. Describe the worst public toilets you've ever visited.

Actually I find public loos very good. It’s the loos in restaurants and smart hotels that can so easily disappoint. In fact I have been known to remove myself and fellow diners from restaurants and other eateries after visiting karzies that don’t meet my minimum acceptance level. And I am pretty broad minded! However, if these establishments care so little about the state of the ablutions they provide, just imagine what the kitchen hygiene would be like!!!

4. What is the food you most dislike and why?

Sago and semolina – foul gloup that should never have been invented nor should have it been all but forcibly fed to nine year olds…ohh and sardines for exactly the same reason.

5. Do you prefer the curtains/windows open or shut when you sleep?

Curtains shut windows open as I have to know what is going on always…and there is nothing so exciting as twitiching one’s curtains!

6. How competitive are you?

Not particularly, well not overtly. I am quietly competitive and more than likely not to say anything about it so no one knows, then give up when I don’t do well enough pretending I wasn’t doing it anyway…

7. What's the best wedding or birthday party you've attended?

A really lovely country wedding last year held in the back of the local pub with children running around and laughter and good company followed by a barn dance with great live bands, bonfires and children. Relaxed and beautiful!

8. What's the best chat-up line you've ever heard/used?

“Can I be your boyfriend?” It got me hook line and sinker. It came after the most exquisite courtship full of longing, stolen glances, half said words and lots of nearly but not yets. Finally a sensual meal out and well the rest is history. I’d say that boyfriend definitely had it down to a fine art.

9. What's better, a bath or a shower?

Bath every time! A shower is just too proasaic, perfunctory and well boring and relies too much on how powerful it is while a bath well as long as it’s hot what could possibly go wrong.

10.How superstitious are you?

Too much and not enough. My head says don’t be daft and the heart says why not!

Now I have that glorious moment of tagging five more!

Mummmmeeeee at No wine on Wednesdays

Expat Mum

Jane at Diary of a Desperate  Exmoor Woman

Mud at Not enough Mud

Crystal Jigsaw

And handing out my own interrogation…

1. Which do you prefer City or country?

2. Do you feel old?

3. What was your most embarrassing moment and can you share it?

4. What was the best thing you ever did at school?

5. Who do you most aspire to be like?

6. Do you think you are ambitious?

7. If you didn’t do what you are doing now what would you like to have done?

8. What would be your most perfect meal?

9. Have you ever broken the law?

10. What songs would be in your Top 3?