Everyday bravery

Sometimes the smallest things are the most courageous. Telling your friends that you are ill is a small thing but it is something people find hard to do; what with all the social ramifications that one, surrounds illness and two, impinges on our social belief system that different is bad.

It’s scary that those two ideas are already manifest in a seven year old. I understand The Boy doesn’t want to be different from anyone else, nor seem to be weaker than his peers in any way. He just wants to fit in and get on with life.

But life has dealt him an odd hand. He has epilepsy. Not the Grand Mal where you collapse but Petit Mal or Absence Seizures. I am not sure whether having Absence Seizures is a blessing or a curse. It could be considered a blessing in that it is easily hidden but it could also be counted a curse because it is so disguised no one actually believes that he has a problem.

The Boy’s life is a record that is always jumping, and I really mean that. For a short period of time at any point in the day and mostly several times in an hour he “blanks” for a few seconds. During this time he sort of goes away, I am not sure where, and then he comes back and carries on exactly where he left off. You wouldn’t think a few seconds would matter but I have found that there is a whole lifetime missing in those seconds. Think about it a second is a long time, it could mean life or death or why else would we talk of split seconds?

The funny thing is, with Absence Seizures is that he can carry on doing things even though he is not ‘there’, for instance, he can carry on walking, even though he doesn’t know it. Can you imagine one moment you are just leaving your classroom and the next you are six foot away from the door down the corridor? It’s not much I grant you but it would be pretty disconcerting. Or say you are telling a joke and you are about to hit the punch line and then everyone is looking at you frustratedly and you know you’ve lost your audience in that split second, or at least what you thought was a split second. Then you could be walking to your table in the school dining room with your tray and suddenly all your food is on the floor and you don’t know why.

What amazes me is that The Boy is able to cover these lapses and no one seems to think any the worse of him. It’s just the Boy. His jokes are lame, he’s clumsy, and he’s in a world of his own.

But there are times he cannot cover, these are the times when he blanks and he wets himself. Just because one part of him is not there doesn’t mean the rest of him will wait. So he stands there and does nothing while he empties his bladder.

He stands there while people shout at him and get cross or laugh at him. One moment normal; the next different and marked.

Today The Boy is going to tell his classmates why he is as he is, he’s going to open himself up to everything he fears because if he doesn’t then worse could happen. He has worked out that he has to tell people even though he will from then on be different because that is the only way he can be accepted. He has to make the moves, he has to anticipate the mood of the community he is in and he has to get them on side, and quickly. Of course he knows there will be some who will make an issue of it but hopefully his friends will show their true colours and he will not be alone.

I am not sure I could be that brave…

If you'd like to know more about Epilepsy and in particular Absence Seizures  check out these links:

Epilsepsy Action

Absence Seizures

http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/seizure_absence

Dive God Da Gold

You know the new term has started when you suddenly feel a little low and not quite right. Within 12 hours you've got a tickle in the back of your throat, three hours later the tickle is definitley sore and you know without a shadow of a doubt you've going down...
Down wid da gold.
All the symptoms were there right in front of you but you failed to do anything about them.

• He suddenly wants to be cuddled all the time - so he can surrepticioulsy wipe his nose across your chest.
• You find yourself listening to heavy breathing down the phone - and it isn't your stalker or even your husband, merely a  minor nosey parker wanting to know who you were speaking to...
• Nose picking grows more prevalent - and you know that hoovering out the car is a definite MUST this weekend.
• There are ghostly goings on in the dead of the night - and you have to budge up in bed as your snot nosed heavy breathing little friend spends the rest of the night placing his freezing feet on all those extremities not coverd by your nightie.

Welcome back to that Great Autumn Term Treat: the Common Cold - pass it on...

Caught in the Act - The wickedest whippet again

Here she is just scouting out the leftovers....

Now she's actually on top of the counter and see the chair has not moved!

 

 

 

 

Still on the counter...

Now in a blur she's off again....

Bringing up boys: the things he’d do for love…

Bog Boy is enamoured of his five-year old cousin ever since he saw her one cold winter’s evening descending from the car in a beautiful silk party dress, with fur tippet and obligatory tiara after attending her godmother’s wedding.

This ethereal being was greeted with the immortal words: “Are you a real Princess?” And she just giggled delightfully saying nothing and yet so much. He has hung on her every word and does anything she asks whenever they meet. This conquest is complete and the power from it is heady indeed. But, Bog Boy’s love is not reciprocated. His cousin has shown her favour to a boy called Max in the same class at school.

I know Bog Boy adores his cousin but I had not realized how deep his hatred for his unseen rival had grown over the year.

Last week Bog Boy was in the garden with C, who helps me with the Veggie Patch. He was excited about the imminent visit from his cousin at the weekend, and was telling C all about her while he helped rake the lawn in preparation for some more grass seed.

Bog Boy: I’m not going to marry her you know.

There was a pause.

Bog Boy: She’s going to marry Max.

There was another pause.

Bog Boy: I asked my big brother if he would kill Max but he said he wouldn’t…

Bog Boy carried on raking and said not another word to C until lunchtime.

Review: Disney cost me £500!

I love reviewing things especially things I like and want to recommend. And I am a sucker for the movies.

No, I don’t get to pop out to the latest big flick junket, there’s no red carpet premier for me or my family. No sneaky peeks at the latest 3-D epic but honestly I really couldn’t fit that in my already hectic social life what with parties by the River (OK it was a birthday party for a four year old) and putting on grand events on one’s estate (a BBQ), really, I’m not that bothered because I love watching movies at home.

Any movie, in fact it is quite distressing to note how very undiscerning I am. In my defence though, it’s not until you see the really bad ones that you appreciate how good the really good ones are.

Now I am not particularly tech minded and in the past that has saved me a lot of money. I mean I was so long deciding about whether to go Betamax or VHS that the market made up its mind and I landed up with a very serviceable Video recorder made ironically by Sony. It lasted year and years and years. In fact I still have it and it’s doing sterling work even now. Come on! I still can get classic movies on VHS for 10p down the road although the quality has a lot to be desired….

And that’s where my problem with Disney started. Now I am not so far behind the world that I did not also have a DVD player, I did. And I have watched some great movies on it, I’ve reviewed some great movies on it but they weren’t in Blu-Ray. Big deal I thought no worries I mean I could see everything fine and the stories are the thing aren’t they?

Well I was extremely lucky in that the very kind people at Disney thought I should be able to appreciate all their hard work by being able to view their films in Blu Ray so they sent me a Blu Ray DVD player.

Everyone was SO excited. The whole family was so excited. Not since crystal radios has my family been able to keep up with the  Joneses nay perhaps even a little ahead of everyone else in the technology stakes. That is until we tried to get the wretched thing to work.

It seems as if my TV and the Blu Ray DVD player didn't like each other much, in fact were imcompatible becuase of the simple fact that my TV is a trifle old – in technology terms. In real terms it’s only 5 years old; in tech terms TVs are ancient history in 24 months not as bad as computers which are passé in 24 weeks or as bad as mobile phones which go into extinction after 24 days…or is that mobile phone tariffs???

Anyway, in order not to lose face and have to send the gift back, I decided to buy myself a new HD-ready TV  (i.e. Hight definition ready) and to take advantage the great leaps in viewing technology and the fact that you can pick up great flat screen TVs really, really, cheaply nowadays. Or so I thought.

If this should ever happen to you do NOT, I repeat NOT take your partner/husband/father/father-in-law or in fact any male member of the species with you to Comet  just days before the First Test Series/World Cup/Masters etc in order to salvage your conscience about getting a freebie. It is expensive. Very expensive.

But I hear you say was it worth it? Well £500 for a new state of the art 36” flat screen TV, which is so clear I hardly have to wear glasses anymore...yup it was worth it and as for the Blu Ray? Come on Guys what are you waiting for, it’s brill!

PS: Many apologies to Disney I had a mad techie problem and this was posted (or something pretty similar but I lost it) on what I thought was a really cool stand alone Review site attached to my main blog. But it’s not and I’ve lost that and a whole load of other stuff somewhere in the ether, if anyone comes across it please could they point me in the right direction!!!!

The Great Food Scrap Challenge

Ohmigod just been watching the BBC’s Great British Waste Menu all about the food we waste. It is something very close to my heart as I am a useless chef but a great scrap cook. I’d like to say it’s because I am an organised and talented person but actually it’s because I am a lazy forgetful housewife who hates shopping. The number of times I just run out of food is depressing and all that’s left are the copious quantities of overgrown courgettes from the garden and eggs from the chickens plus veg and fruit of dubious origin in the back of the fridge. I kid you not but we’ve survived on just that for a whole week until the kids begged me for meat, we then killed a chicken…
The programme was great but the thoughts I took away from it were scary and I found it difficult to get my head round it. It’s all very well saying that £10bn of food is wasted every year in this country or that that families throw out 8.3 million tonnes of food waste annually. When the figures are so big it gets difficult to grasp.
The average British Household throws away £680 worth of food each year. I wanted to know what that meant so I asked Dear Charlie, who is good at numbers, in that he can work it out quicker than me (I would have got there in the end but I might not have been able to do this post for a few days…).
Now if you tack on the fact that that money is from your taxed income it actually equates to closer to £850 of your salary if you are a normal taxpayer. The average family income is some £21,500 a year. The amount of food the average family wastes equates to 4 per cent of their annual salary. Just think if you didn’t waste any food at all then you’d have an immediate “pay rise” of 4 per cent and how chuffed would you feel about that in the current economic climate!
The thing is although I loved the programme I can see why people waste food and I think it’s down to these three things:
1. People are time poor or at least feel it: how many mothers, for it is usually them, also have to hold down full time jobs? Grief! When do they get the time to shop let alone cook?
2. People don’t know how to cook, let alone shop for food: Home economics though taught in schools to a varying degree doesn’t give our children the wherewith all to understand even the basics. It is often considered a joke by pupils or something that only the ‘thickos’ do. What is so scary is that it is so crucial for everyone. And skills and recipes for frugal cooking are being lost. We are in fact losing sight of what food is really all about. To appreciate it you really do have to reconnect with the processes from growing to killing. Perhaps then we would not be so fussy about what it looks like!
3. Labelling is downright confusing. With all the media hype about food poisoning, complicated best before, use by and sell by dates it’s no wonder people just say stuff it better safe than sorry…

So I’d thought I’d share some of my top tips to stop the old wastage and save a few pennies…
1. Do a meal planner every week!
2. Forget labels and taste/smell your food to see if it’s off.
3. Use your freezer so if you have food you haven’t eaten in your fridge and it may go off pop in to freeze! Don’t forget to label your food for the freezer or you land up like me going for a lucky dip which although exciting doesn’t necessarily make you popular with the kids when you serve them garlic chicken and pears….instead of fish fingers and chips!
Here’s a couple of great websites to check out and inspire too…
http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/
http://therubbishdiet.blogspot.com/
http://www.wrap.org.uk/

Bringing up boys: They never grow up!

There’s this thing right where they say something to you and your heart just goes to your mouth and all you want to do is protect them from the hard knocks of growing up. You’ve forgotten how hurtful it is, all those disappointments which in themselves are nothing much to a grown up but to a little boy, well they must be soul destroying.

We were in the car going to a friends house, a friend with three fantatstic boys who in the past have always been happy to indulge my two, but it’s been a while since we were there over a year and now well now these boys are very grown up.

The Boy: Mum how old is E?

Me: Oooh I think he’s 11 now darling.

The Boy, wonderingly: T and H are older than that aren’t they?

Me not too comfortable where this one is going: Yes they are.

The Boy: H is two years older than E and T is older than H.?

This was suspiciously sounding like one of those math problems where the words made it more difficult than if the sum was actually written down.

Me, suspiciously: Yeeesss….

The Boy: So H is 13, he’s a teenager.

I was going to answer but I was in two minds if I should just say yes H was 13 or whether I should congratulate The Boy on his mental arithmetic when he carried on.

The Boy: Bog Boy, you know we shouldn’t expect the big boys to play with us you know. We aren’t very big.

Bog Boy just gazed round eyed at his big brother and I just carried on driving eyes firmly fixed to the road ahead but mind spinning away.

I felt I should counteract this statement by saying of course H, T and E would play with them but then I couldn’t actually be sure that they would. I mean why should they? There is four years between my eldest and E and 10 years between T and Bog Boy. Huge gaps and of course Teenagers well, they are a different breed altogether…

We parked and tentatively opened the gate and walked up to the house. All of us waiting in trepidation fo rhte rebuff that would surely happen…

But you know apart for an initial awkwardness they were all soon playing Wii and then basketball and then as the evening wore on any protestation of sophistication was totally forgotten and they were all hurtling down hills in go carts, squabbling and fighting and just being – I do love boys, you know they never grow up!

Schadenfreude terrier style...

Don't you believe that butter wouldn't melt in his mouth!

Never, ever think you've got your terrier taped, even if he is 11 years old. And never, ever even think that perhaps your terrier is better behaved than anyone else's.
Today, minding my own business or not as the case maybe, I perused the blogosphere and came across The Miracle courtesy of Asbo Jack, Exmoor Jane's wonderful JRT doing exactly what JRTs are supoposed to do - surprise you, lull you into a false sense of security and then do exactly what it is they've been wanting to do all day - pick a fight with somone larger than they are. Classic small dog syndrome. I laughed safe in the knowlegde that that sort of thing doesn't happen to me anymore on the basis that the JRT ( Jack Russel Terrier) in our house is permanently grounded and only taken on walks or runs when there is little chance of him meeting anyone at all let alone another dog. This can be facilitated by either walking said dog in the middle of the night or else at 5am in the morning.
Back to today and my slighly, dare I say it superior feeling about my JRT Tigger. No that sort of thing would never happen to me...but pride does come before fall and I have fallen hard. Just as I was writing my witty little comment ( I can dream people, I can dream and I can also expand the truth a little too) I heard a cacophony of barking, the postman had arrived. Every day we go through the same ritual. Post van drives up drive, Tigger goes bonkers and looks a little like Krull as he squashes his head against the kitchen window trying to bite the poor postman. We all laugh and indulge his little whims safe in the knowledge that he cannot get out. Sometimes I have noted the postman teases the dog a bit by deliberatley slowing his pace and waving the post about - bad move. Tigger has a long and ferocious memory even if he cannot see all that well anymore.
Everything should have been all right, the postman should have slotted post through the door into the wire cage and returned to the van, got in and driven away.
BUT...
But today, Bog Boy decided he'd help Mummy who was workign upstairs. He opened the door...
Ohmygodheopenedthedoor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tigger got out! I only saw it from the corner of my eye as my office window overlooks the back door. There was a horrendous barking and growling. The whippets took up the challenge and shot downstairs too woofing, I shot after them, didn't bother to put on shoes. There was shouting asnd growling and what seemed to my ears like somthing being dragged over the gravel - Oh please God! NO!! Not the Postman!!!
I bolted out the door slamming it shut on three demented whippets who then bounced up and down barking more ferociously than ever trying to get a better look out the glass panels on the back door.
It was a horrible sight, schadenfreude always is, with the Postman ineffectually batting at the terrier who kept leaping up at him trying to get a better purchase on the his shorts. I saw the dog make contact and the postman whizz him round all four feet off the ground. As he turned I lunged at the dog, grabbing him and in the process nearly pulling the poor Postman's shorts off. I have never had to apologise more profusley and so fast. Mortification was NOT the word. I HATE Jack Russels, I really do!
Needless to say Tigger went back into the house well satisfied with the day's work while Bog Boy round eyed handed me today's post. "Can we do that again tomorrow?"

A Fat Cat

A Fat Cat: Alice 2010

Fat Cat has never really moved about much, so it wasn't all that surprising that on Saturday morning she did not move. What was surprising is that the only time the Fat Cat ever deigned to move was when it involved food, so all things being equal she should have moved on Saturday morning to eat her food.
But perhaps she was eating.
Just not here on earth.
Fat Cat was born immovable, I'd like to say she was Sphynx-like but she never had that gravitas or mystery.
When I first saw her as a kitten in 1996 she was sitting with her front paws curled beneath her close to a radiator. In the whole twenty minute visitation she refused to move. Her litter sister Agatha was moving everywhere in fact she skittered around the corner with all her fur on end and has been skittering ever since. Fat Cat whose name was Slack Alice never skittered, she padded. In fact if she padded far she would have to lie down for a rest before she'd gone more than 20 yards.
She was a considered cat and I loved her for it because as well as being a Fat Cat she was also a Lap Cat. I loved having her sit there while I watched TV, feeling her throbbing purr beneath my hands as I stroked her. I'm going to miss that terribly.
She and her sister were bought by me for my 30th Birthday. I felt that as I was now officially over the hill and boyfriendless I might as well embrace my forthcomoing spinsterhood with good grace and get some cats to complete the picture.
Unfortunately my cheque bounced and after their breeder tracked me down to my work abode and harangued me on the street for fleecing her, it was my boss who actually paid for them. He stumped up the £300 quid and I paid him back in installements with interest. I called them the most expensive pussies in London and that's saying something as I worked just off Soho.
Fat Cat certainly pushed hard on her requisite nine lives. getting stuck under floor boards, eating a ball of wool (luckily I saw the end and was able to pull it from her mouth, I kid you not! I was stunned by how much she ate and how it all came out . Needless to say I used the episode as an excuse not to learn how to knit...). Then there was the time she got outside, now I know cats  should always go outside but Alice was an urban cat and not used to grass. She much preferred concrete or tarmac. When we moved to the countryside she took a stroll outside and just thought it was awful beating a hasty retreat indoors. Even though I always left doors and windows open she never went outside if she could help it. But  one day she felt brave and decided to follow the path outside the front door, down to the gate, along the drive until she got to the middle of the road where finding a nice sunny spot she lay down for a sunbathe and dust bath. We found her rolling around quite unpreturbed by the traffic slowly passing her by. She was quite relieved to see me and proceeded to miaow at me with great feeling. I think that was the most active I ever saw her. I also think she felt that the whole episode only confirmed what she already knew, the great outdoors is vastly overated!

Slack Alice aka Fat Cat

June 1 1996 - August 7 2010

RIP

What;'s the worst that can happen?

Imagine the worst thing that can happen when you are asked to look after a friend’s pets while they go away on holiday, and then double it.
My best mate J has had the most terrible time recently. You see we went away for two weeks and left him in charge of the house, the dogs, the chickens and the cats.
Now J has done this loads of times, and in the past has had some near misses. Like the time when I phoned him up to say Hi and check up on the builders who were busy converting the attic and putting on a new roof. At the end of the conversation I casually asked how he was doing with the cats.
“Oh they’re fine,” he said cheerfully before asking after my holiday and when we were coming home etc.
Little did I realise that as I was speaking to him on the phone, he and the builders were desperately trying to locate my Siamese cats from between the floor joists where they had managed to get stuck. Everyone could hear them but just could not locate them. The hunt involved taking up the newly laid carpet and ripping up floorboards in several rooms. Needless to say when we got home there was no evidence that anything untoward had ever happened at all and it wasn’t until a few years later that J confessed over a particularly boozy supper.
Over the years poor J has dealt with the would be kamikaze cats, the toothbrush eating whippet, the subterranean Jack Russell and builders en-masse: 15 of them to be exact and never once did he forget their individual tea and coffee orders. By the way he also had to run his own workshop to make a living.
However, this time I think he took the biscuit.
For as well as agreeing to keep an eye on the EBJ (the wickedest whippet it the world) and be of assistance when she was to be mated, (I know, I ask a lot, but there is only a small window of opportunity on this and as luck would have it the whole thing sort of landed up on J’s plate, he said he didn’t mind as long as he didn’t have to get hands on or anything!) he also had to look after my elderly Siamese cats, Agatha and Alice aka Fat Cat.
Having acted as Dog Pimp and got through that ordeal J was on the last few hours of his watch and nothing untoward had happened. It should have been a coast all the way home so to speak.
He knew we would be back after lunch and then he could finally go home and relax.
So that morning he bounces down the stairs, lets the dogs out, puts the food out for the cats, does he chickens comes in for a cup of tea, lifts the small cat, Agatha, onto the table so she can eat in peace away from teh dogs, notices the Fat Cat has not moved, goes over to lift her onto the table for breakfast and then realizes that something is very, very, wrong.
The Fat Cat is always the first to demand food, the Fat Cat is called Fat Cat because that is what she is and to be a Fat Cat means you are particularly food orientated. Missing breakfast is NOT an option, not when you have a reputation at stake.
As soon as J touched Fat Cat there was not a shadow of a doubt what had happened. She had died peacefully in her sleep curled up on a chair.
For J the event must have been the worst nightmare ever.
I mean only a few hours…
Now what would you do?
Option 1) ‘Fess up and as well as having Dog Pimp on your CV add Cat Killer
Option 2) Pretend you hadn’t noticed and leave said cat to be “discovered”
Well J is my friend and I would not have blamed him for going for Option 2 but he didn’t and although I was very sad about FAt Cat, and I will post about her later, I couldn’t help but see the funny side. Poor J. I think that really is the worst thing that can happen on your watch!