We are survivors!

I went to my mother's today. She's in her late 90's and is a lot less mobile than she used to be, and has decided that she'd like to start recording what her life was like when she was younger. When we were looking through some of her papers, we came across something she'd already written and was quite pleased with, and I'd like to share that with you:

"We are survivors!
This is an article for those born before 1940.
We we're born before television, before penicillin, polio shots, frozen-foods, xerox, contact lenses, videos, fridges and the pill. We lived before radar, credit cards, split atoms, laser beams, and ballpoint pens, before dishwashers, tumble dryers, electric blankets, air conditioners, drip dry clothes, and before man walked on the moon. We got married first then lived together {How quaint can you be?} We thought 'fast food' was eaten in lent, 'A Big Mac' wan an over sized raincoat and crumpet we had for tea. We existed before house husbands, computer dating, dual careers. When a meaningful relationship meant getting along with your cousins, and sheltered accommodation was where you waited for a bus.
We were before day centres, group homes, and disposable nappies. We'd never heard of FM radio, tape decks, electric type writers, artificial hearts, word processors, yogurt, or young men wearing earrings. For us, "time sharing" meant togetherness. A chip was a piece of wood or fried potato, "Hardware" meant nuts and bolts. and "software" wasn't a word.
Before 1948, 'Made in Japan' meant junk, the term "Making out" referred to how you did in your exams, a "stud" was something that fastened a collar to a shirt, and "going all the way" meant staying on a double decker bus all the way to the depot.
Pizza's, McDonald's, and instant coffee were unheard of. In our day, cigarette smoking was fashionable, grass was mown, coke was kept in the coal house, a joint was a piece of meat you ate on Sunday's, and a pot was something you cooked in. Rock music was grandmother's lullaby, Elderado was an ice cream, a gay person was the life and soul of the party and nothing more, and aids just meant beauty treatment or help for someone in trouble.

We, who were born before 1940, must be a hardy bunch, when you think of the ways in which the world has changed and the adjustments we have had to make. No wonder we're so confused and there is a generation gap!
But by the grace of god, we have survived - Hallelujah!"

Credit crunch

The credit crunch....sounds like a cereal.
Snap,Crackle and pop...and your money , job, pension, saving, house, local shop has gone.
So here i post a little credit wonder.
Yesterday, Kingsmill bread was £1.39 per loaf in Tesc....but i had been to Bookers and bought it on a short life for .49p per loaf less £3.61 for ten. Which in the end meant i bought ten loaves of bread for less than it cost me for one in Tesc.
FANDABIDOSY!
Mr Wilkes wanted to sell me a very small bath for just over £250 and said if i waited till after Xmas i could get it for 20% off. If i wanted it now i would have to go to a bathroom specialist and it would cost me a considerable ammount more.
So... i went to B and Q and got one and the panels and delivery for £158
Power of the net....catch the deals and reel them in!
However i did go to Ikea on Monday...and wanting to offer a good example i made a note of what i wanted to buy and tunnel vision bought it and only it. Mr H was most amused and tried to tempt me with many a likely buy.

Auction today and i'm sad to say i was a little distracted.
However i bought a new sofa for the kids to fight over to watch the telly for the princely sum of a £1.
6 games and a deluxe corkscrew for £3.
We have had tremendous fun with the board games all evening (no child has even wanted to press the start button on a computer or game boy never mind fight over them)and Mr H has practised using his new corkscrew..DELUXE!.....Xmas presi sorted
then!
It's about time i got him back for the tile cutter!
The bathroom floor looks great...just needs the bathroom door putting back.

Life,Love and Loss

I havn't written on here for some time. In fact i've been very busy being depressed, a little 'issed off ansd tearfull.
Living with mr H can do that.......only kidding!
Seriously, it's been a sad month.
We can all relate to being young, headstrong and invincible....personally, in secret that's me.
In reality, we are often vulnerable, inexperienced or at the mercy of others.
A young 19 year old, step brother to my eldest children, has died in a car crash.
Young, headstrong, invincible, vulnerable and much loved, a beautiful young boy.
There were many, too many, to see him off to his afterlife...they made a long procession behind the herse to the grave side and after packed the small evangelical church. A short life celebrated and a future moarned, lost. The weeping strong and pungeant, wracked with thoughts of what iff's.
Baby P, so frought with terror. A short life.
There was also an inquest for a young person scolded in a bath.
Loss, such terrible inexplicable loss.
Blame.
This is something which often consummes us but which more often offers no solace.
To blame , extricates, places accountability in the hope that in future things will change. We are human and to ere is human....and loss is often hard to bear.

My mother is quite old, well, compared with me fairly old.....and she wants to die in her own house.
She also wants to make sure we all know, as in all my brothers and sisters .....and she also wants to be the very centre of our universes.
Wants and needs.....so hard to reconcile.
She lives 120 miles away and when i make an arrangement to visit she is always going somewhere else.
She is 98 and busy busy busy and i am glad.

No actually I'm ~issed off because my brothers and sisters say I'm a crap daughter and my mother has better things to do than see me.

Actaually she was a great mum and was there when she was needed by me and i know i have been there when she has needed me....and i will be.

The lengths Mr. H will go to .......

The lengths mr H will go to to get me to write on this blog are quite incredible.
The bread rolls i made today were admittedly very hard, as in rock like, even I had to saw through one with the circular saw.
Mr H on the other hand would prefer to ham it up with the green godess hearth kit...Hammer and chisel!
He failed to mention i had prepared and cooked a fantastic indian supper or that the same bread dough had made super duper pizzas which he had guzzled down without the aid of hammer, tongs, chisels or even a jack hammer....infact he had not even had to find a sharp knife.
Three casseroles in the freezer, all because we want to go to France and be alone together....Be afraid, very afraid Mr H!

i've had enough

I've had it all. Today has been a pretty horrible day.
Definitely not moving, my mother is giving everyone the run around and there's loads of questions about where the money has gone. I can see a mega family bust up on the horizon.
I've forgotten the grandchildrens birthdays.
I want to run away!
Now I've been forced into baby sitting out of pure guilt.
I wonder if i would have all this shit if i had tithed.
I really really want to run away.......and the worst of it is i know there are lots of people out there having an even worse day.
The optimist in me says it will be a better day tomorrow.....like hell!

OOOO! I love an auction!

It's Friday. I've baited Social services and they've bitten. chewed and spat out. Having won i can do something a bit more challenging, something that's going to jazz the old brain cells...like an auction.
Off i go, having perused the wares the previous night, made my notes, consulted the oricle...Gooogle and the like and priced up.
A quick second look incase i've missed something.
I survey the auction rooms to see which dealers are present.
The white haired guy with the Aussie hat nods to me...we've parcelled things up before. He likes clocks, oil lamps and needlework.
The big dealers are out in force, many from the big cities, who all deal in the quality furniture market, one guy i know from the capital who also has a retail outlet locally.
Some of them clock me, nod, smile, or glance a recognition....we are all sussing the oposition.
The biggest danger are those we don't know, the newcomers, those ordinary people, who quite often will bid stupid ammounts and drive up prices. They are the ones the auctioneers are looking for.
I saw a nice pine set of bedroom chest of drawers, normally they would go for £20. They went for just under what you would pay for them new....2 people were in the room who wanted them. They also wanted the beds i wanted.
Another day another auction!
A fridge freezer went for £35.00...I was hoping to get it for £5.00
There was a murmer of incredulity...someone behind me said they're mad, another, thats daft.
Thing is the economy is upside down, it's hard to tell what something is worth.
I was there to get the sofa, it was a bit flowery for my taste, but comfortable.
Just the thing for lounging in front of the telly!
There were some nice water coloures and a few pots, the maker of which i've been collecting. An Alfred Meakin dinner set i liked loads but not enough to put in a further bid.
The piece de resistance for me was perhaps an oak dresser, dating to around the date of the house we are buying.
I thought I'd better consult Mr H, after all this was quality and i thought would go for about £900.
A considerable sum for us to spend.
A little old lady saw me looking at the piece and declared she had been told it would reach 6-9 hundred but that a lot of dealers were there and it might reach £1300
She was very exited and a little detective work indicated that she had the same initials as indicated the seller.
Don't be dupped!
The bidding started and Mr H was close by...£600, 650, 700, 750, 800, 850, 900, 950 and i bid a £thousand. £1050, 1100, £1100 i bid, i looked to see if that was ok and Mr H was missing....1150, 12000, £1250 and my hand went up 1300...etc.
I was out and so was Mr H.....I found him in the foyer, head in hands muttering.
It's ok it's at £1500 i said. He looked up in horror.....
No, not us.
US! You mean you his eyes said and then they registered we didn't need to find £1500 we havn't got.
It is not often i can get him in the seat of his pants....well not unless i'm driving.

Actually i'm sad. Nice house, nice dresser, just not meant to be......just yet.

Rain Rain and more Rain

Now I'm beginning to feel rather greedy regarding rain and really i feel we should be sharing it with Australia or the Gobi desert.....
We've been lucky this year as we went to Brittany for 3 weeks and saw the sun. I've only seen the sun three times since and with more rain on the horizon and it expected to be torrential today there is only one thing that might make a difference.
I have declared it is the grand lighting of the Aga day....if it will lite, a sauna like kitchen is bound to bring out a late autumn swelter in the sunshine department.
Anyway I'm fed up of salads, time for some rich creamy soups and curry.
In all fairness it's very nice of me to declare the lighting of the Aga but it will be a long day of toil, soot, oil, swearing, heavy lifting, singed eyebrows and more swearing for Mr H.
Consequently Mr H is all together less happy about my declaration.

11 years old and big school

Friday today and the first week in big school is taking it's toll.
Little ninja bouncing Tigger is wandering around in a daze, complete with PJ's and sleepy eyes.
The breakfast spoon seems heavier than usual and his normal superspeed reflexes and quick repartee is missing.
Simple questions such as wholemeal or white rolls in your packed lunch? tax his almost dormant thinking.
I can see he is going to need a lot of help or he will have a detention for not having his tie, a detention for not having his PE kit and a detention for leaving his books at home....something will have to give.
Big D finds his rucksack and packs his lunch for him, Beth helps him with his tie, berrating him continuously as she does so, threatening much earlier bed times next week if he's going to make them all late for school.....I'm beginning to think i'm redundant as a mother!
I find his kit for games and little D finds his trainers.
Branny finds an envelope to hold money and a permission slip for a rugby trip and Mr H starts the van and beeps the horn urgently.
As they pour out the door, little ninja Tigger declares he doesn't want to be a big ninja Tigger!
Growing up, responsibilities....i feel for him.

Looks like it's red gooey stuff in a very hot place without any darlings with wings or trumpets!

At last we have gone to see the house for real.
Now I know all about travellers, hippies and eco warriors and being a positive person I thought I'd prepared myself for mayhem.
I often joke that i live with a bloke that hasn't decided whether his hero is Steptoe or Dell boy from Only Fools and Horses.
Bearing in mind we often as human beings model ourselves on who we admire....be very very sorry for me!
No one and I repeat no one could have prepared themselves for the property or the vendor we saw today.
He described himself as a wizard, but surely even wizards have to touch down occasionally with reality.
Flying away on his magic carpet he showed us where we could put a geodeasic dome, where he had put his sauna, complete with nudes on the wall and a massage bed....knocking shop or what?
We could put a tarp over an outbuilding and rent it out to the local council...the fact it had no water, sewarage, electricity seemed to have passed him by.
Wave his magic wand!
The outbuilding had full planning permission for conversion to residential....residential what?
The roof was a combination of wood tin and perspexe and the homemade staircase was a deathtrap!
Mr H was very keen i go and look....silly man he's the one with a will!
The main house, a typical Pembrokeshire house probably dating back to the early 1800's was delightful from the outside....inside I'm not sure what is holding up the kitchen/dining room which is on the first floor.
I love the steps and balcony leading from the outside,through beautiful french doors into the kitchen....i can see Mr H and I having morning coffee there in the early spring sunshine....after all it will probably be too wet the rest of the year!
Two large sycamore trees are to the rear of the property, complete with tree house platforms and rickety steps....Perhaps i should get the kids to write wills?....and to the south a large pond with an island and a man Friday hamock.
All i need now is a man Friday!....Calling Mr H!
The mad vendor maybe a wizard after all becaue i am enchanted. I leave Mr H to haggle while i sit in a dubiously constructed deckchair in the rain thinking...Heaven!

To sell ..To buy....Both but which?

Ah the joys of selling a house are as nothing compared with the joys of buying a house!
Harangued and under siege by estate agents from all directions, buyers, sellers and the kids all wanting to know where we will be living at Christmas.
I'm a pretty untidy person, but i am organized....everything I've tidied up for a viewing is in a cupboard, chest of drawers, under the bed or in the van.
Have you seen....? is a common question asked of me.
Where is....? is another.
Under the stairs? In a cupboard? Under a bed? In the van? is a more common answer.
It was funny when the viewers opened the door to the under stairs cupboard and were bombarded by an avalanche of sleeping bags unpaired socks and t shirts.

It is with great delight that i can now return the favour and know that someone has frantically been tidying up, dressing rooms and hoovering the carpets.
Houses with windows opened when it's windy and wet are damp and those smelling of perfume and patchouli oil have pets or kids who wee the bed.
There is something voyeuristic about looking around someones house and it's very difficult not to make some sweeping judgements.
We went to view a house and partly renovated cottage this morning...It looked sad, abandoned and overgrown.
The cottage looked as if a chaotic magician had started some spells and had got distracted halfway through.
Later, after much digging around on the Internet we discovered the chap had indeed thought himself a bit of a wizard.
I just know that is where we will end up living....Mr H was enchanted.
I am far less susceptible to magical influences and thought..."deep red gooey liquid in a very hot place!".....work it out!
On the way home, we received a call from an estate agent we are not even looking at houses with or is selling ours to ask us had we put an offer on another house that she had on her books.
Indeed we had.....and she informed us that there was likely to be an acceptance of the offer. So now we are in hiding, awaiting to see if an offer will be accepted on the magicians property before we make a decision.
Meanwhile the buyer ai champing at the bit.
Life is never dull living with Mr H.

Water..Slugs..Indian Floods and a Hurricane

Brittish summer...well, it's rained. Rained and rained some more!
Even the slugs seem a bit waterlogged and are creeping their slime filled way into the house.
Trails of glistening slug gloop accross the floor, over discarded jumpers, trainers and socks.
Cabbage gorged they seek shelter from the persistant rain.
They could have had it worse, were they an Indian slug....washed away in monsoon rains....or New Orlean slugs exhorted to leave their homes for higher dryer lands.
Strange that slugs, so universally slimey can be treated so differently.

Back to school soon as in imminently

Hooray!
The school holls are so very nearly over.
Shirts, blouses, trousers, socks, jumpers, skirt, trainers, shoes....for 6 children.
Mega pounds.
Rucksacks, pencils, pens, calculators......don't need one of them to know there's no money left for lunch.
Listen kids it's going to cost £75.00 per week for you lot to have lunch in school....so guess what you are going to have packed lunch.
Much cheaper but one hell of a lot of work. I've worked out that if i get up half an hour earlier i can provide the kids with a balanced meal for half the price.
The kids are crestfallen....salad,fruite,rice, bread, yoghurt and the occasional chocci biscuit or even a packet of crisps.
YUKK!! YucK!
The 6th formers, and Beth, oh how nice they had planned to be to Beth, who would always go to the shop accross the road and get them crisps, fizzy pop and SWEETS.
Will we have money for drinks said little D?
What's wrong with corporation pop? I said.
Water from the tap?.....eh nothing! They said a little feebly.
We might not pay tuition fees but the state system of education in Britain seems to cost more and more each year.
Computers, printers and the more expensive ink, memory sticks, musical instruments and hockey sticks, bats, balls, trainers, shorts and special socks and shirts to tell which school you belong to.
You want to do geography GCSE?
Can you afford to send yor child on a course, that's a necessary part of the examination?
£93.00
It was a struggle for us and we are quite well off. How can a working class or especially a child from a non working family do geography?
Cover your books with film to keep them safe from being kicked around and getting wet, pens, pencils, rubbers, rulers, calculators.

We say education is for all..equal opportunity so long as you can afford to cover your books.

A Different Perspective

I love Brittany and our little house, the Intermarche, Le Scorff where you can get a 4 course lunch with wine for €10.50, sneaking off to a cabin that the kids don't know about with mr. H on the ferry for a bit of us time.
I love lots of things, even home in Wales, very wet Wales.
Several kids down and we think we are in for a quiet,ease yourself into the usual life time.....Funny how fate thinks differently.
Mam has had a really big stroke, she is out of hospital and back home. My eldest sister has moved in with her, which has involved getting a skip and junking a lot of mams stuff.
No 2 sis phones and says I should visit soon, as in now, mam is very funny and is a lot of fun at the moment.
I hear the anguish that she thinks is buried...mam has needed oxygen several times in the night, her 97 yr old heart is struggling to pump.
I steel myself and phone home.
"Ello luv...'s Glooooria. Yur muthers under the dryer...D'y'uh wan me te give er a message?"
Now, do I want to be all Barry or shall I be posh?
I decide that my parents have shelled out on elocution lessons and it would be disrespectful not to put them to good use.
"Yes please Gloria. Could you inform mam that i will visit on Thursday afternoon"
"Rightyo, luv. Yer mams gonna luv tha"

Typical I thought, she can't possibly die with a bad hair do!

Mams fine, well she ate a whole plate of sausage and chips followed by Auntie Bettys' fruit cake. Of course she had said she couldn't eat a thing....but that's part of the game isn't it?

It's my nephew's wedding next Friday...I've bet Mr. H a tenner that's when she'll snuff it. She can't abide anyone else being the centre of attention....and why should she?
97 is a good old age and she is old labour so she won't be waiting for a telegram from the queen.....?
Had yet another visit from big D's social worker....my, is she keen.
Big D seeing mam and dad at last. The previous visit had been cancelled because they didn't have the bus fair.
His mam was very upset as her dog had died, the windows had been smashed in and the television arial cut.
The social worker ooohed..... and i thought, dad has pissed off the neighbours again then. Wonder where they will move to next?
The phone has tintinabulated quite alot since we've been home...and i have let it sing.
Sadly others have been more curious and answered it's pervasive call.
The estate agent called....thought they were a thing of the past.
Viewing on Sunday morning...people from Hampshire (lots of dosh) their house has sold and they are looking for our sort of propeerty (semi derelict)
Actually less of the semi as we are definately detached!

Bugger! Bugger, Bugger!
Last viewing back in April....which means the house has not had a proper, thorough tidy through since then....and it's rained a lot and we've been away for a month so the grass outside is up to my neck!
Why oh why didn't I learn from my mother and follow everyone else in their desire for housework?
Why have we not employed a gardener?
...Oooops I know the answer to that one...because we'd rather spend the money indulging ourselves in France!

Ok. Plan 1....Do the job properly.
Plan 2....Panic.
Plan 3....Strim the hay...put junk in the trailer and bag up everything else in the house and shove it in the van, hoover and dust (if I can remember how)

We opt for plan 4....go to the Indian for a meal, get bladdered and go to bed!

weddings

Strange things weddings…….

Even stranger in Brittany.

The sun glinted through the clouds and sparkled fairy dust on glistening woodland. Evael and Francois are to be joined together, forever? In front of a load of people in gowns of white cream green and blue. My girls carry the flagfs for Wales and Cornwall and stand behind and to the kleft and right of the druid mawr, who is presiding over the ceremony.

It is mystical, it is magical, it is something wonderful to behold.

People desperately trying to connect with their past, to bring their past into the present and vice versa.

A spring in a woodland, magic in itself, air, earth, water and with man,…. Fire 4 elements, three common one rare. One element which has been regarded by some as that which holds man apart from animals.

Fire holds withing itself those attributes of saviour and destroyer., Choices….. Does the fire chose? No, man choses.

To warm to cook food to light or to destroy.

We can chanel water, use it, but often it reminds us of it’s power. The same is true of wind and also earth….

If we look after it it returns the favour, feeds us, builds security and in death surrounds us but fire …. Is something we think we can control

It’s a Pagan ceremony I would like to say steeped in history but having witnessed it and having witnseed it I would like to say it is relelvent today, in machination to draw ones need for clelbration and ceremony together.

I have always felt that Youenn the father of the birde had some Jewish background, There is a pride, a part of history that defines a Jewish person a sort of dignity. I am in awe. They sing Shallom and it feels right within the ceremony and ritual there is a sense of times slipping by….

I have a sense of now in the past and the past in now.

I think of the current whodunit literature and fantasy and think of the Jesuits of the crusaders and the Masonic lodges.

Dressing up, drinking from horns, pillars, wells, woodlands, could be from a new novel.

To artex or not????

Lying in the bath, glass of Sancerre to hand and a book.....very strange book. A book that Zills has purloined from the library.
Be very suspicious of books where the writer uses different fonts, colours and bold text to emphasise things.
I put the book down on the lav seat and look up contemplating, a sip of wine and i notice several new blobs of pre-masticated toilet tissue stuck to the art ex ceiling.
Several weeks ago i decided to plot the path of blobs on the bog roof by purchasing different coloured toilet tissue........and what a beautiful, colourful ceiling i have.....perfectly offset by my chandelier!
I suspect it is easier to get paper blobs off a flat ceiling than it is to remove them from art ex.
I am in the bath, yet again, having had to scrub white paint from the kitchen floor...Little D, bless, well someone will need to after I've finished crying, has decided to roll his football off the chest freezer into an opened (by him) bucket of exterior white emulsion.
What a lovely pattern the ball has painted across the kitchen floor!
What a lovely addition it has made to his new T shirt and shorts!
Psychosociodoggiedoo......my glass is full of brilliant innovative art work.......believe that and you are really........STUPID!!!!!

EGGs

Haven't written anything for ages...been too busy, washing clothes, organizing and packing for a weekend of efficacious and various musical entertainment.
The phone tintinabulates....could we keep an eye on Josh. His friend isn't allowed to go and mummy and daddy are worried he'll get up to no good at a music fest.....alcohol, drugs sex....I wish!
Now the thought of bigmacs boyfriend coming with us for a weekend of camping fills me with all the dread of swimming in seaweed!
Two adults, one of whom will be sleeping 6 hours and working 20 in each day and the other who just wants to bop and chill with the said same worker for 28 hours in every day.....7 kids and another who is enchanted with eldest daughter....sad git!
Spells disaster before it's even started.
The phone ring rings again.
Is J going to the fest? says a nervous mum.
No he's house and animal sitting i reply.
A sigh of relief..."in that case can you keep an eye on Mattie?"
Well, she's really cool, for a teen, witty intelligent and fun to be with...no probs!
Forward and on...wellies or flipflops? Shorts or thermals?
Bought a great double sleeping bag and self inflating mattress......intimacy and warmth guaranteed.....well as long as I can find a victim to share it with!
Zills comes home from school with a by the way LLyr (her very distant 75th cousin 24 times removed God botherer) wants to come to the fest as well and further more his mammy will phone that very evening.
AAAAGGGGHHHH... no one told me it would be worse when they were teens!
Mammy was worried about drugs and drink and Mr H being a relative she knew he would be safe!!!!!!!????????
Obviously not the most loving and in touch parent. Visions of lambs and wolves uppermost in my mind I continued to prepare.
Prepare for what?

The weather was great, the self inflating mattress and double sleeping bag lived up to all expectations. The music outstanding and the kids were an asset, a credit to their parents and stupendous ambassadors for youth......great Junior stewards!

What' s that got to do with eggs?

The first morning blurrr after the late night before was welcomed in by the quacking and gaggling of many ducks, slug slurping around the tents.
The said ducks stayed and layed whilst I cooked breakkie on a two ringed stove for 12 and Dave...whoever he was.
Two eggs later, one of which was poached and served up with great ceremony. The other freshly layed was declared the new would be son or daughter of Sir Bruce and was promptly stashed under her arm pit to be kept warm and incubated until hatched.
No one told her it would take 20 days, but help in the form of saddo the clown and his marvellous egg saver balloon ......at least if she rolled over in the night the balloon would contain the gunk.....that was the idea.
Not content to just nurture this would be little brucette, the egg was transported warmly everywhere, experiencing the delights of the waffle bar, ice cream parlour and the various musical extravaganzas...tucked safely in her bra? it bopped and danced, jived rocked and swayed....until it bounced right out and ended spread across the dance floor.
Wailing above the sound of garage, beating her breast in anguish with the BOOM BOOM of the drums she looked in horror at her yellow and white smelly offspring.
...........Daddy, god bless has got her a duckie for when we come back from France.

Last post and dentists

Just read my last post. What has the dentist got to do with anything?
Well, I meant to tell you that he who should never has actually purchased a toothbrush.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

....................................sorry I'm in a bit of a faint...stunned and shocked! Stunned and shocked!
I have known he who should not for several years...nearly 2 decades and i have never known him to brush his teeth.....
Yuk and double yuk and some.
He says he does brush his teeth......but with what?
Better not be my toothbrush!
Or mine, or mine, or mine, or mine, or mine etc.

Yes Ali, by the time you get him, he'll be a new man!... perhaps he'll even have clean teeth.
Whose a lucky girl then?

What a week, dentists included

What a week!
This is the first time I've had.... to think, all week.
Small Nations music fest next weekend so it's all hands to the pump. The green goddess pump that is. Who cares where we will all sleep, let alone in and on what? Will we eat?....probably not if the food tickets go to Zills as they did last year.
The most important thing is getting a new head on GLORIA!
I nod wisely, and look sympathetic.......Should it be torqued to 100Th, 70Th or as it is now 64Th. Modern metals, new bolts, something about copper gaskets and by the way if i wasn't doing anything important could i sit in GLORIA and apply the brake when he tooted the horn. He was trying to free off the clutch, but apparently the brakes had gummed up and were firmly stuck.....no need to apply the brakes then!
All of this sit in my wonderful vehicle came as a bit of a surprise to me especially as i had taken out most of the fence and half the side of the car coming down the drive on Wednesday and the wing mirror still dangling and clanging as a reminder.
Glutton for punishment or what?
The girls are at my mothers...she has had yet another stroke but at 98 years old she has no intention of lying down and ....
They are supposed to be looking after her but in all honesty she is looking more sprightly than she has done all year.
She has thoroughly enjoyed being passed from pillar to post by "the family" and has decided it's my turn.
GROooooooaaaaaaan!!!!!!!
I don't do my mother,much to the amusement of he who must be disobeyed.
The thought of looking after/putting up with/listening to my mother ( YES I'M SURE THERE ARE LOADS OF PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO WANT TO SPEND THERE TIME WITH THEIR MOTHERS BUT I'VE SPENT 18 YEARS TOO MANY WITH MINE.) is more than i can cope with let alone actually do it.
I feel sort of vindicated because my sister feels that she would rather go to hell 100 times over than spend any length of time with mum.
He who must not has never felt this about his mother and hence the amusement and i feel a little unease.....then again i would have travelled to Pluto for my dad and he probably would have for his father but would have resented every step.
Family!!!!
Big D threw up in the bathroom yesterday.
Projectile vomiting is his forte it would seem. There was more fluid on the floor than the bath could hold.......ok it felt like that at 11.30 pm.
He who should not found the plastic gloves and domestos and passed them to me with a hint of sympathy.....BARSTEWARD!!!
At last a day alone with he who must not.....a cuddle in bed? lunch? a walk along the coast path hand in hand?.... a kiss?
Forget it.....oh yeah i forgot I'm nearly 50.....you are not supposed to think of such things.
We are old, ancient, beyond time and not supposed to want / need/ desire intimacy.
Get real....shopping and the answer machine...who invented them?....Shoot them!
Tali had hurt his shoulder in school and needed to go to casualty.
Family.....bloody inconvenient!

The Positives About Fostering

Fostering other peoples children can be a real horrible deal.
Sometimes you need more help than is recognised or available, sometimes it goes horrendously wrong....yeah and sometimes it's special.

Those special times make up for all the down times.
Chris phoned today...I can say his christian name, because he is no longer in care, he is just another person we all think about and sometimes write about in our diaries and blogs.
He left our house in a storm of unthinking, unthinking on our side and that of social services, but despite the past, despite the bad time we shared we still keep in contact.
He will be 22 years old in October.
Funny to think of him as a young adult, the last time we met he was 15 years old.
He was desperate to see us and we him. We both thought that we would have time to speak, swap photos, have lunch....quality time catching up.
Social services had different ideas. They were concerned that meeting up would cause problems for his new placement and so they allowed and facilitated him to meet his mum for the first time in three years.
His birth mum quite rightly was more important to him than meeting up with us.
We gave him a hug, told him how much we missed him, passed on the photos and made a sad but Hasty exit.
The kids were sad and didn't really understand....they were hoping, wanting to spend time with him. They missed him terribly.
Funny when i think of Chris, I see him with a plastic police helmet on his head siting out the front of the house on a large boulder, walkie talkie in hand, reporting me for driving to fast.
He has moved yet again, and worried that we would not be able to get in contact with him, he phoned to tell us his new address.
Can i speak to Tess, and Branny and Beth he asked....and they were more than delighted to chat to him.
Gwion was sad,....what about me? He had been a babe in arms, a toddler just when Chris had left.
What's new with Vic and Mat? he wanted to know and we were able to keep him informed, part of the family....our extensive and wonderful family.

Competition and driving

He who should never....in this case.....be believed really is a devious so and so.
Not content to win the unofficial house blog competition, he seems to have created in this house, he has attempted to lure me into once again having a new rant by elaboration, exaggeration and pure lies.
I am a Paragon of good driving and as to the UFO sightings in South Wales.....I haven't been air borne for at least a week.
Admittedly, I was a little cross with he who thinks he's faultless in all things, but i had given him the option of driving.
He had replied that I should drive as he hadn't been terrified enough that day!
Before i had even turned the key he was clinging on to the door rest, head pushed back into his seat, grimacing like a gremlin. Picture starship Enterprise going into warp speed unbelievable and the hull is about to fail and they are all going to spill into the dark void of space and that is him.
Who am I to disappoint him?
I was perfectly aware of the S bend, the speed at which i was proceeding at, the adverse camber of the road as well as the runny cachi spread across it.
I had judged the reactions of drivers of oncoming vehicles with an astuteness akin to mind reading......apart from that I was in mid rant and it would be a shame for my driving style to be out of sync with it.
He is still alive, which is probably more than he deserves, the car is intact and those driving in the opposite direction were now well awake.
God would once again smile on me, as yet another few converts to his cause prayed quietly in thanks.
I could pull over and he could drive, i suggested.
There was a pregnant pause as he looked down at his white shorts.......not sure that that would be a good idea he said.

About to loose a limb

We are about to loose a limb, yes , ok sounds strange, but that's exactly how it feels.
You know the limb is a little disfunctional, a little bit strange, but it has been a part of us, a part of our family for over 5 years.
The limb has an extention of itself, an older parent, a little way off and this parent hasn't always functioned well but now is on top form and ready and wanting, needing to take on the job of rearing.....and in my heart of hearts I know that this is right.
In my heart of heart I feel bereft, lost and loosing a limb.
Not just any limb, but one we have as a family put everything we had into, nurtured, cared for, grown.

I went to collect him from his birth mother today, from the train station.
He greeted me with a smile and held out his bag. "It was raining back home" he said...and my heart flinched.
Home....This was the first time he had talked of home other than Penlan...and i could feel a great upwelling of sadness and gladness and a crack in my heart.
I know he is not mine, I know i have borrowed him, to care for him for a time, to treat him as if he were my own, but not my own. I knew there would come a time when I would hand him back....but I did not know that i would feel so bereft. I did not know that i would feel as if my world had broken....I did not know.
"It's been sunny but windy here" i heard myself say....and I could see he wanted to know that while he had been away that life had somehow stopped and we, suspended had done nothing of interest.
His real mum said "I've been thinking" and my heart missed a beat" He should go home with you after your trip to France for a few days so that he can say goodbye to his friends."

I knew she was talking about a real and apparent GOODBYE, not a see you later.
I mustered an Ok.....but it wasn't and fighting back the tears we moved forward to the van.

He sat in the front, buckled up and waved his mum farewell.

We drove in silence.... the tears falling.

In The Pink

I'm feeling qite well today....in the pink!
Now i'm a person who is often tempted to view the world through rose tinted specs. Unfortunately life has a habit of jumping up, bopping you on the nose and knocking them off.
Reality.......the word is not half has hard as the concept.
As i was driving along yesterday, Zills singing along to her i pod, admiring the purply pink spikes of the foxgloves and the delicate pink of ragged robin in the passing hedgerows, i gave a thought to "PINK" and it's close cousin "RED"
I'm seeing red as i pass yet another fuel station....132.9 pence a litre for diesel.
I glance down and see the fuel gauge is perilously close to the red and i'll never get to the dentists and back before it sinks to empty.
Never fear, he who should never has lent me his credit card, as mine, along with the tesco clubcard and my debit card have been swallowed by the washing machine.
Do you remember when hole in the wall machines were introduced? I do and i was always petrified that it would swallow my card. Let me tell you at least with a hole in the wall machine, you stand a chance of getting your card back in one piece. My washing machine has been spitting them out via the filter in little pieces!
Go to Morrisons, he advises. They have a pay at the pump.
So with his card in my pocket and the number written on the palm of my hand i look for the said supermarket.
He says i'm notoriously bad at navigating.....i think this is part of a spurious propaganda operation by men against women.
I found the dentist, i navigated though Swansea without getting tooted at or having a bump, but i could not find the needed garage.
In desperation i drove into the nearest garage, which happened to have diesel at 127.9 pence per litre....but no pay at the pump.
Feeling hopeful i filled up, pondering overgales in the bank account and being very much in the red.
I walked into the kiosk payed with his card easy peasy!
Not very secure these cards are they, especially since no one looks at them to check a signature?

Zills pink faced watched as i walked towards the car, almost disapointed that the police were not ready and waiting to ambush me.

Things for nearly .....FREE

The sun is shining in a bright blue sky, well ok it has been today where i live, and the elderflowers are just coming into bloom.

Not last year but the year before 24robbers came knocking at my door.....oops sorry. I meant Tesco, the electricity board, local fuel station and my central heating supplier!.....oops I meant yesterday!

Love that book!

Elderflowers are blooming and blooming great they are if you like elderflower cordial or champagne!

So for anyone who lives near a supply of plastic screw top bottles, elder bushes, and Tesco (just to buy the sugar and lemons)...oh yeah and you will need some citric acid you could be making your own elderflower cordial/squash.

Citric acid is becoming a little difficult to get, apparently it's because it's used in the making of crack cocaine.

We are onto a winner then with the youngies already!

My grandfathers recipe for elderflower cordial:

Pick 20 heads of elderflower.....Please ask the tree for permission before you take.....or it will turn out like cats pee.

N.B. Only take the flower heads that are fully open and pick in FULL sun.


Yes, I know they smell like cats pee!

2 lemons, unwaxed.

2 tsp citric acid

3.5 llbs sugar

2.5 pints of boiling water


Something to strain it, such as a muslin cloth or a tea towell. ( babies puwk clothes are perfect)

If you want it to give you that little extra, use 4 lemons....useful for sore throats, colds and arthritus i'm told.

Personally i just like it.

Pare the rind of two lemons ( cut it off in long strips) and juice the other 2. No reason why you couldn't use the same 2 lemons. Or make it extra lemony do both, paring and juicing of 4.

Sorry if i'm confusing you!

Heat the sugar and water until it boils, then add the juice and rind of the lemons, also the flower heads and the citric acid.

Leave to cool, covered for 24 hours .

Sterilise bottles with boiling water, strain liquid and fill bottles, leaving a gap for expansion, especially if you want to freeze the cordial.

Serve, diluted, yes , Mr. H, with cold water and ice, add a sprig of mint.

Yes Mr. H I'm sure it's better with cold white wine!

I think it's yummy, so do the kids and even "he who should never" is persuaded to leave the corkscrew alone!

This is a tree i'm told that can ward off witches and if you wear a sprig of elder in yor hat at Beltaine then it said that you may be able to commune with fairies!

Not that I'm an unbeliever, but i wonder is this anything to do with crack cocaine use?

Honestly elderflower cordial is delicious and safe!



If you have a chance and you are pleased with your cordial take a drop back to the elder tree to say thankyou.

Fang Menders

Spent nearly all day travelling to and from the fang surgery, accompanied by Zills, who also has suddenly developed fang rot.

My teeth are brill, apparently...especially with all the shiny silver amalgum and gold. Seriously the fang doc. thought, after X-ray and freeze the tooth/teeth experiments that breaking my nose had set up some sort of neuralgia....so if i get liver and kidney damage from excessive use of painkillers and whiskey it's my fault for trying to clean out a soaking wet boat on a slope in flip flops!

Thankyou mr H for the anti-biotics!

Zills on the other hand has been sent home with a script for amoxycillin and corsydyl and is about to have her first filling.

She told the fang monster "That's it i'm never brushing my teeth again!"

Grunt has started a week of work experience in a local garage.
"What do you mean you work school hours?....Oh no you don't. Work starts at 8.30am and finishes at 5.00pm. Bring a packed lunch, overalls and toe 'tectors. I'll supply the tea and coffee."

The poor lad dozed all the way home, ate a bowl of cornflakes, followed by bolo, ran a bath and crept into bed without even a grunt, all by 7 pm.

Will he make it to Wednesday?.....

I'm beginning to think i like the whole idea of work....It certainly makes for a quieter time.

What a competative person?

Competition is not dead in our house.
Not content at getting his blog on line before i got mine.......i may add by minutes! He can type faster than me. Mr H avidly clicks into his stat counter, he even sends me e-mail reports of how well his blog is going.........Look at my face am i bothered?
This morning he brought his lap top back to bed, so he could cooch up and show me his stats!

It used to be little babies and kiddies coming between us, and in the depth of winter "dozy daisy" the cat.....the lap top is getting close to the last straw!

I've brought you coffee said no.1 daughter, sorted the towels and bathers out.....then i remembered we'd promised to go swimming.

Off to the local pool and some serious swimming. Not for us the larking around in the pool.
A steady breast stroke and i was off. 4 lengths to his 2.

It's not fair he grumbled Zills is putting me off, she's making me laugh.
Excuses, excuses.
Zills was helping him, encouraging him even, in a special voice reserved for encouraging little ones. "Come on daddy, nearly there, you can do it, aim for the light.....no, not that one the furthest one away.....come on daddy, you're doing really well"
As soon as it looked as if he was getting into his stride she'd put on the power and leave him for dead!

The power of sir Bruce.

It's bad enough i can swim further than him......at the moment. I'm sure that will change.
For goodness sake build his self esteem and DON'T READ MY BLOG

A beautiful place to live.

A perfect end to a beautiful day.



Windberries, juicy and pink. Soon they'll turn deliciously dark just right to add a bit of fruity sharpness to a sponge pud or tart........and FREE!!

A spring mix of bluebells and wild ransomes.

If you like the smell of garlic, take a walk past the wild ransomes just after it's rained.

Pick the young shoots and leaves...furthest from the path!

They add a brilliant dash of colour and a mild garlic flavour to soups and early spring salads, and guess what they're....FREE!

Questions for dentists

Now I've got lots of half written rants in my drafts box, mostly about my work or on how to...... survive living with mr.H (The latter in the vain hope that the extra lean, younger vegie in Totnes might read my blog and decide she's got better things to do....like eat celery!)



Of late I've been forced to think rather a lot about TEETH.



Now I've got a whole legion of kids here, and every morning and every night i say don't forget to brush your teeth.

I spend a goodly fortune on toothbrushes and toothpaste. The thing of the moment is one that sort of foams up in your mouth and is alleged to get rid of the nasties in the small gaps between your teeth other pastes cannot reach.........but does it have the Ronseal?....Does it do what it says on the pack?
Mr H calls it "Rabies toothpaste"

Are they like shampoos and conditioners......mostly a lot of psychosociodoggiedoo to persuade people to pay more?

A lot of my work is based on best practice, which has been resonably well researched.
What sort of research goes into teeth and where is it published?

For years we have been exorted to brush and floss and pick, swoosh and swill, to flourinate or not......and yet it is now clear that it is not a good idea to do this if you've drunk a fizzy drink.

What evidence is there to support all this oral hygeine?......don't get me wrong i clean my teeth daily.

It's just that i have lots of kids and i have observed...... the one who is now nearly 16 and has probably only brushed her teeth a hundred times in her whole life is the only one who has no fillings and has had no treatment. She is the only one who gets told, lovely teeth and gums, well done every 6 months.

Her elder sister, who is fanatical about oral hygeine has treatment regularly.

Their younger brothers, who don't see the necessity of washing , nevermind cleaning teeth, have only the problems of chipped front teeth.....freefalling from bicycles.

Beth with a mouth full of amalgum is hardly a good advert for toothpaste, brushes, flosses and washes.
Very puzzled mum!

Dentists

Dentists.....They are among those wonderful group of people we love to hate.......unless you've got toothache and then they are mysteriously transported into that group of people we hate to love, but love to see.

Ahh love is so fickle.

Having now digested a whole course of anti-biotics, which i may add i have not divulged in since the new millenium, a large bottle of whiskey, several packets of aspirin and paracetemol. Not all at once or i'd probably be writing from the great beyond!
I am feeling considerably less in pain and have chickened out of a visit to the fang monster.

Excuses are us abound!

Monday on the other hand looks as if it will be my personal "D" day.

I suspect i am in for open hand bag surgery, or in my case whatever is in my jeans pocket that hasn't been eaten by the washing machine monster.

Toothache

Gnawing, throbbing at the best of times, persistently there.
I'm passed trying to work out which particular tooth is the culprit, half a dozen at least have joined in.
I've brushed and flossed and used those little coloured brushes to get between the teeth.
I've gargled with warm salt water and he who should never has peeled me down from the ceiling.
I've gargled with Glenfiddich....but i swallowed that!

Ok i've done a naughty thing....i've used mr H's antibiotics, the ones the quack gave him to keep just in case his elbow swelled up again.
and I'm on 4 hourly aspirin alternated with paracetemol. The chemist said that would be ok for a couple of days.....dentist i hope on Tuesday.

I never take tablets, but i'm in so much pain, rattling might take my mind off it.

Lambs Heart

Yes this is another vegetarians turn away post.
Bought 6 lambs hearts for £1.10
Zills said she'd tasted oxe tongue and it was good, liked liver and bacon, but what was ofal and why was it offal? .....awful?
If we were going to kill animals for meat to cook and put on our table, surely we should be eating most if not all of the animal?

When i was a littlie, we used to have lambs hearts, stuffed and braised for a goodly long time, served with a pile of mash and veg and mint sauce....it was one of my favourite meals.

It's the heart thing i think....love and all that sort of squishy stuff.....emotions.

How come it's ok to eat shoulder or leg of lamb, but mention a heart and everyone is running away?

Ok, so I've bought the hearts...what the hell do you do with them?

The daddie is snoring and probably farting the bed chambre out, the boys are a'kip and the girls are watching "educating rita" on the box....it's late and i have to deal the hearts!

Taking a good gulp of red, i place the hearts on the block....yes i know, these were the organs hard at work pumping blood around those darling creatures that jump and spring on new years grass.

I make an incision with a sharp knife, cutting away the main artery, and then push the hearts inside out, stuffing them with bedcrumbs, onions, lemon zest and rosemary, salt and pepper...I have an audiance.....uugh says bigmacs....wow says zills.

I place them in a deep dish with lots of onions and a dash of red from my glass...ok i'm not that generous... but it adds to the colour, a goodly amount of water and covered with ali foil they are stashed for the night in the bottom oven of the aga.

"Hey big D we are having lambs hearts for dinner" says Zills with glee as he tucks into his breakfast.....looking green he turns to me, hoping zills is having a joke.

They are served up, sliced in a rich sauce, with creamy mash and colourful veg and of course mint sauce.

Wonderful, a blast from the past and a delight for all except big macs, who secretly feeeds it to de man , the cat of cats.

Trading in for a younger model

My father used to say to me "Shall i trade your mum in for a younger model?" It took me years to see the joke...she was 10 years younger than him and as for being a model, well she was quite a looker for her years.

It wasn't a marriage made in heaven, although i suspect there were some heavenly moments. Like me, she often found a motorbike in the kitchen, or something boiling in molli on the stove, something totally inedible!

There were demands for her to make something, not just babies, but a set of sails, including a spinnaker, or a bee hat. He had this sort of faith that she would innately know how to do something without ever having any basic training in the skills needed.

When i look back, it seems impossible that she make a set of sails. How could anyone expect such a thing?.....HE DID.

.....and she went to the library and got a few books out on the relevant subject, hired a hall to lay the canvas out, acquired the ingredients so to speak, and set to work.

I can see she must have loved him and his belief in her was so complete it swept her along on a tide of "can do".

He never said she ever let him down and i cannot see how she could have.

It was a tempestuous relationship, lots of laughing and joking and singing.....and then there would be anger and temper and he'd lift her up by her hair.

She would go and stay with friends or family.....i suspect until he'd said sorry and it wouldn't happen again......but of course it did.

Reading this, you would think that he was powerful and perhaps abused that power, but she ruled the house and especially the finances with a rod of iron. He rarely had money in his pocket, and certainly not to buy cigarettes or a beer. She kept a set of black books, in which she recorded every significant purchase.

They have been an endless source of amusement with the family and have settled many an argument about dresses or shoes and whether it had been fair or not.

Now he who should never and i, have had our ups and downs but it has always been a secret delight of mine to think he woud trade me in for a younger model.
I often think of him, up at the crack of dawn, walking the dog along the windswept coast, whilst a thin athletic younger woman joggs alongside him, chiding him to run, get fit, drink less. He longs for a bacon butty dripping with chilli sauce but she's a vegetarian and won' t have meat cooked in her kitchen. I visualize how long it would be before she hosed him down, or slept with the windows open in the freezing depths of winter. I could go on and on and be more specific but it's starting to get horrifying. Where i wonder would all the gg's go? not to mention their spare parts. Where would 150 axes and 50 skeins of hemp rope live..... in a little cottage by the sea?

Thinking about it....he rarely trades his vehicles in for younger models, usually older to ancient...perhaps he'll trade me in for an older model!

Bessie in the pub?........errr grim!

Think mr.H had better stick with me....I'm used to doing public service, sacrificing self for the greater good and all that.

Perhaps i could be a new super hero????

If i publish this, i think i'd better go out for the rest of the day, week, month, year!

LOVE YOU MR. H.

Promises

I try not to promise anything these days. The harder you try not to do something....well,it's yet another unwritten law of human nature, someone somewhere is going to force the issue. A house full of kids and i'm a loser before i've started.

Grunt needs petrol for his motorbike, the little annoying one needs a lift to grans.....100miles away on a bank holiday,with a grand concert happening in town to celebrate WALES WINNING THE GRAND SLAM(sorry should have asked the Saes to turn away) and worse of all i have to be back in time to take the other littlies to the cinema.
Oh and he who should never has just told me we've got friends coming round this afternoon.
Splitting the atom was easypeasy.......anyone know how i can split me and be in three places at once!

To top it all i've got toothache, gnawing, persistent toothache, of the kind you'd happily cut your headoff with a blunt,rusty nail file if it would only make it STOP!

Yesterday i got through, admitedly a bit curtly, on a wave of paracetemol and Glenfiddich but i'm driving today.

Teenagers!!!!!!

Every child matters?.....What was i thinking yesterday?

Teenagers.....aaagh!

Grunt has left one motorbike in the living room and is currently fixing another in the kitchen. "It's raining "....well i think that's what he might have been saying.
They don't exactly talk at this age. Lost the art of human speech, overnight. All that effort in getting them to annunciate the beginning and the end of words, to be confident to speak, all gone.
He went to bed one night and awoke the next morning only able to say "uugh" followed by the occassional "umm"
I've become quite adept at grunt interpretation......perhaps i could run a grunt course for would be parents of teenage boys.

Girls on the other hand, seem to develope instantly overnight into know it all opinionated, articulate, if somewhat loud banshees, who can punctuate what they think with a good door slam.
My advice is get some ear defenders and adopt a vacant expression......they think you're pretty vacant anyway ...best not try and disabuse them.

Every Child Matters

This is a very serious subject for me and yet as i write, that annoying little ditty from" The Life of Brian".....every sperm is sacred is playing endlessly in my mind.

Every child matters, perhaps should be an anthem, that everyone who works, lives and comes into contact with children should know by heart and is at the heart of their practice.

I work in the child care services and i have children of my own.



We all use the health service and access opticians, dentists, Gp's.The education service is an almost daily part of our lives and as children grow and become increasingly independent, they come into contact with youth and voluntary services.

The judicial system, law enforcement and population surveillance is a constant in our lives and that of our children.



Up until quite recently these agencies worked largely independently of each other and interacted in an undefined ad hoc sort of way which was mostly driven and governed by child protection needs and individual agency agendas.



Identification of need has been in the past the main tool in addressing problematic child and adolescence.



This" identification of need" seems to start almost pre-birth and follow the child through to adult hood.

"Meeting of need " however, has proved to be more problematic and often dependent on factors around available resources. It is still often the case that those who shout loudest or are more articulate, win over those who sometimes have a greater need.



Every child matters as a philosophy, attempts to equalise irrespective of financial resources, the post code lottery of meeting needs.


Every child matters systems as opposed to a select number or type, ability or disability, wealthy or poor targeted systems is in my view, starting to produce some good outcomes for children, which can be built upon in future generations.




In the past few years, foe example, i have seen a growing engagement from the secondary education service in Britain with parents. It has always been there, but now they strive to reach parents and children who have before, been left on the edge, to struggle or not on their own. Welfare and pastoral needs have been identified and specialist trained workers have been alloted to address them. They work closely with youth workers and health, and through the school nurse directly to the GP, paediatric and special needs providers.

Education has become more active rather than passive. Services which have historically, been there for those who looked are now actively looking for those who need their services.

Looked after children are still micromanaged and services imposed that cause them to be treated in a different way to those children looked after by their parents. Personally, i believe this to be to the detrement of those children who often want to be treated the same as other children and offered the same opportunities.

However, in one area, looked after children have benefited greatly and that is by having an alloted CAMHS (child and mental health) nurse. This is often someone they see infrequently, but who, nevertheless, gets to know their personal health needs and individual issues.
They can offer children and carers access to programmes and services that they may not normally be aware of and point them in the direction of targeted help.
I would like to see all children offered an annual health check up on the same lines that the CAMHS service offer to looked after children.

If systems of working and living with children had at their centre, a strong philosophy and actioned that EVERY child mattered then perhaps we could have integrated services equal and open, less open to abuse and more able to spot, and act on neglectful and damaging behaviours...

Bugger the Boat I've Broken my Nose!

Whose stupid idea was it to get in the boat just after they'd hosed it down......ok, thanks for the bag of peas, but do you really need to be laughing?
It hurts!
Serves me right. I should've known the boat couldn't compete with the GG's!

A Green Goddess Widow Am I

It's a lovely Sunday afternoon. The sun is shining, and the wind is blowing warmer than it usually does on top of this mountain.

The rugby season has coming suddenly to a halt and i think maybe we'll spend some time as a family kayaking, or a walk through the woods to the pub and a cool refreshing drink.

Want on says no.1 son and he who should never (be obeyed) almost in unison....Phil the biker is coming up in a mo and we thought we'd fill Fishguard Bell up with water....

I can feel the cold icy dread, premonition....ney, conviction of an afternoon pumping water from the river and the inevitable drama of the inevitable breakdown.

Points, coil, run out of fuel, bad earth......the list is endless!

No.1 son says, I can't go kayaking, I'm in the middle of taking the paint off....I'm nearly down to the bare metal and I'll need to get some primer this week before it rains.

Calling all green goddess widows....HELP!

Junk Mail

OOps, must be the chicken i've consummed.......or that bad bag of crisps!
Someone in work has given my new e-mail address to some computer nerd in advertising for our local authority (the people we work for) and i have been assaulted by invitations to go to reading in the library for tots i don't have, theatre tickets for what can only be described as "z" plays as opposed to "b" movies.....not that i'm fussy! I think it's the aqua robics and the ante-natal swimathon that's got me worried.
Do they know something i don't?
The thing is when i say i work for a local authority, and i do, well.......it's not exactly local, being over 100 miles away!
A whopping 5% discount for something that's going to cost me £50 to get to is sort of defeating the object!
Nevertheless, you've got to admire their tenacity.

So....anyway i phoned the nice lady and said i wasn't impressed....I did it very nicely, you know with the smile in your voice, that says I'll eat you later but for now I'm a smiley person.
Anyway she said "oooo I know, junk mail is an awful problem.....but i just press the button see and i wouldn't know how not to include you....coz i just send it all by pressing the button"

"Could she not just delete my name from her list just before she pressed the button?"......"no" she couldn't because then i wouldn't get the mail.

How sad i thought, hang on wasn't that what i wanted?

I said I'd be really impressed if she could do that but sadly she said she wasn't allowed.

"Where did she get my e_mail address?"

From your manager she told me, because she'd been concerned that she'd sent me the stuff and it was coming back as unreceived and that wasn't allowed.
How sad, i sympathised, whilst thinking that's because i've changed my address so you in paticular cannot send me all this drivel.

Now silly me, i thought your e-mail address was something personal and people needed to ask you if they could pass it on.....ooo and I must be daft because i thought well i can put a stop to the postie delivering junk and i can put a stop to the unsolicited phonecalls enticing me to change phone provider or wishing me to purchase double glazing......but apparently i can't stop the people i work for sending me unwanted, unasked for adverts in e-mails.

Sometimes they send me something i need to know, such as a change in law, or an invitation to a meeting, something pertenent to my job.
How i asked could i work out what was needed and what was junk?

"I dunno" she said "I just press the button!"

Junk e-mail

I never get any e-mail.......probably because i'm such a bitch.....good friend.
It's so bad my lovely zilla has had to resort to getting her father to e-mail me.....interestingly all his mails go straight to junk e-mail.
Honest i don't know why.
Any techies out there that know please tell me so he doesn't feel junked.

"Pheasant for tea" then says he who should never.

" P
Pheasant for tea then" says he who should never be obeyed, shutting the door after waving a smiling goodbye.

Ok, my last posting was a tad bitchy.....she brings out all my best qualities.

He who should never, is of course a paragon of virtue and would never stoop so low!

Subtle, he is!

"Hey Nikki, look at these cameras, just bought this one for Zills...she's got a really great eye and this SLR is the next step up for her".

Oooo, she cooed, eyes turning a lovely shade of green. "I've been looking at them in tir a mor"
I like to shop local, you know, keep the little person in buisness.

(It's not shopping local i object to but the "little person" is spoken of in a particularly patronising tone)

"They are coming down in price all the time" says he who must never "We've been looking at a Canon"

The gentle hue of green has spread incredibly fast and she is now looking a little green around the gils. I wonder how long it will be before she has bought a top of the range camera with every conceivable add on and accessory.......Probably first thing Monday morning!

Her credit card company should really think about giving us a cut!

Economy Drive

My mate Nikki has been here this afternoon, drinking my dwindling stock of good white french wine, the crappy plonk, already having been consumed.
I'm not mean, honest.
It's just that when i go to her house, she drinks the expensive Gurverstremeiner and she opens a special bottle of Bretonniere for me. If i hadn't fetched it for her fom France, then i wouldn't know it only cost £2.10 a bottle. It's the "I'll open this for you, you don't like this do you" brandishing the Gervertz "too flowery for you"
I wouldn't know, i think, i havn't tasted it yet!
I'm far too polite to say this....I know my place having been brought up on a council house estate.
She stays far longer than she normally does and downs a few more glasses than is probably good for her.
"I'd love to stay longer" she says looking wistfully at the empty bottles
Bet you would i think! ungenerously.
"but I've been at the golf club far longer than i should have".
Bet you weren't playing golf either i think.
"He's on one of his economy drives" she whispers conspiritorally. "I'm going home to cook liver...it's so cheap at the moment!"
"I like liver". ......She gives me a look that says....i expect you're used to it.
"How are you going to cook it? With smoked bacon and onions?"
I think she's going to say how sweet but she manages a " How Paysienne. No, darling with a good red!"

Very economical!

Child Protection???????

Now I don't often write about work but I'm going to make an exception today because quite frankly I'm a bit cross.
Probably "a bit cross" is an understatement.

"He who never does as he is told" has been threatening to hose me off the ceiling with the jets on his green goddess......don't think he'll dare because I'm so cross the water will instantly turn into steam and there's already enough of that coming out of my ears to service several saunas !

Now we have been parenting a young lad for the past 6 years, and a smashing lad he is too. He isn't ours by birth or adoption but a firm and valued member of our family he has become.

Yeah, ok, I'm not his mum and he isn't my child... but he's in my family!

Now I have a lot of kids, not all of them my own, but a goodly proportion are.

The said young lad has two statutuary reviews of his life a year. For the past 3 years one of these per year has been held in our family home....It's where he feels safe and confident enough to say what HE wants and thinks and thats a hard thing to do when faced with a barrage of adults, all keen to stamp there mark and prove that they are truly the ones who have his "best" interests at heart.

The other is held at a family centre so that his true parents can gain knowledge of what he's up to, how school is going and whether he is healthy....all the sort of things parents need and want to know. They also have an opportunity to contribute, say what they would like, voice their opinions and encouragement.

There's a fantastic opportunity for keeping in touch and sharing.

I think there's not enough sharing in this world and every little bit of sharing is so valuable...don't waste the opportunity!

Now, dad has not been a model of good human nature in the past. In fact he's the sort of man most people would not want living next door, especially if they were a woman or a child. Add to this a sprinkling of wanton violence...get the picture?

Yeah, well there's such a thing as unconditional love and young lad has seen it all and loves his mam and dad, just as most love there kids and his mam and dad love him.
They are SPECIAL and so is he!

Ok, Well what am i cross about?

I'm cross because the reviewing officers have for, well , I know for certain for the last review, and suspect for several previous reviews, if not all, have been inviting DAD to my family home.

Now, dad at the moment hasn't transport, and luckily we live over a hundred miles away and he has never attended meetings at my house.

Nothing bad has happened but the potential for evil against little ones, who have done nothing but share their mummy and daddy and home and toys and school and friends and holidays and life and most of all, kinship and friendship, is very real.

The department remain oblivious, content in knowing they are ticking the boxes of parental inclusion.
They are oblivious to the potential harm, and disregard the safety of all the members of our family.......
NOT FOR LONG!!!!!

Mummies Piggies

Thinking along the lines of vegetarianism and bacon sandwiches, I find myself thinking about our dear little piggies...alas they are no more....eaten they are by ourselves and our friends....Yummy Scrummy they were too!

"Do you want some piglets?" said a friend. What sort of friend she is I'm beginning to wonder!
They were so deliciously beautiful, two little Glouster Old Spot/ Tamworth Cross piglets, Boars, apparentlty, she assured me without the relevant bits.
I am so stupid, I never looked. How I missed the bits that shouldn't have been there....say no more, I'm gullable, daft and naive.

Well prepared, got a book from the library, pig fencing and number one son and crazy friend, called ....Grendal (should have had second, third and tenth thoughts with such a name) made a pig house.

Pigs root around, turn over land and eat anything........Anyone seen that horror film, where the pigs are fed humans?......Ok...lets not go there!

Little, darling, sweet piggies arrive and we are all delighted........

.....................Not for long!
It's very hot and lovely Chris, who is a little hard of thinking, in the kindest way, is concerned that Christmas and Easter are a bit too hot and need cooling down.
Caught in the act of cooling little piglets down with copious ammounts of very cold water from a very large bucket. "Chris, stop " I foolishly shout. "They are only little, they'll get cold and could die"
He is sad. He was only trying to help. He will remember " PIGS MUST NOT GET WET"

Little piglets they do not remain. Their size seems to increase exponetionally daily.

The pig nuts are stored in an old car, and Christmas and Easter, our two growing piggies are very clever and increasingly immune to the electric shocks of our pig fencing. ......
Piece of cake, breaking into a car, for pigs!

Even bigger and fatter piggies, but no sign that their intelligence is waning......they smell female piggies, a mile up the road and have gone "A wall" It's ok, they haven't got their bits....oops!

I run up the road after Christmas and Easter, 10 litre bucket filled with rattling pignuts, in the vain hope that food will win out over F***(interest in the female form)

Serves her right for telling porkie pies! Her sows, were now very likely preggers by their brothers!....Brings a whole new dimention to the family way!

OOps no longer friends I suspect!

Having had their wicked way they were content to follow me down the road. " Come on mummies piggies " I cried whilst jiggling the rattling pignuts, hoping against all hope that no-one would recognise me.

Now, it's pretty typical of Pembrokeshire, that it rains , and pigs being pigs they were running amuck in the farmyard and rain being rain it was pretty wet.
Chris remembered "PIGS MUST NOT GET WET"

He opened the front door and invited.....300 llb of pig x2 into the house out of the rain.

Have you any idea what two fully grown greedy piggies can do in a house?

I didn't know who to scream at first, so scream i did....but pigs can upturn a large freezer and fridge and riffle its contents, immune to screams, turn tables and push arm chairs into splinters before you can say" pork chops"

Yummy, scrummy the best place for piggies is on my plate!

Vegetarians........sorry!

Vegetarianism and me

Now, i have often flirted with vegetarians....oops or did i mean vegetarianism?
Probably both!

Infact i'm a bit of a fruit and veg aholic, especially if we've grown it ourselves. There is something magical about the whole process of growing something, even if it's just a few spuds.

You know, digging and preparing the ground, and watching with excitement how the first hard frosts break up the large clods into wonderfully crumbly soil ready for planting. Children, eagerly pushing in the chitted potatoes and watching daily for the first signs of fresh green leaves. Earthing them up and best of all, forking them out of the ground.
It always amazes me how many potatoes grow from just one small potato.

The smell of freshly dug up spuds is truly wonderous and one that cannot be captured by the supermarkets no matter how soon they think they can get them from the field.

Cooking them and eating them.....well thats my favourite!

It's just not about the humble spud, i know, and there is such a fantastic array of fruits and vegetables available to us now.

I often wonder about the human cost in producing such delights, not to mention the costs in resources (most of which, once used are gone forever, turned into nasties for our lungs)

The sheer number of grains and pulses available to buy and cook for our edification is astonishing.

I have a whole series of books, probably written in the 70's...101 ways to cook pasta, chicken, soups etc.
I wonder when someone is gong to bring out a 101 ways to cook quinoa....me, i don't know what it is, where it's grown, it's food value or indeed what to do with it!
So come on, there must be someone out there who can take advantage of our ignorance and enlighten us for a small fee.

I've always grown up with vegetables......no Rhys, my father might have had little education but he was no vegetable, although he often grew some spectacular ones!

I think a meal would be particularly dull without the colourful addition of fruit and vegetables, however, for me a slice of succulant lamb.....yes i know it's the same thing as those delightful bouncy, fluffy creatures bleating in the next field...only dead, is something well worth looking forward to.
I quite enjoy chicken, turkey, pheasant and bunny. Bunny pie, in our house is rabbit and vegetable stew with a thick wholemeal pastry crust....thinking on it, it's probably the beer that makes it so delicious.

Now i would be quite happy to live on cereals, pulses and fruit and veg and no meat for a generous ammount of time, but to live without a bacon butty......that would be pure torture.

Vegetarians turn away now!

A visitor, a welcome visitor is staying once again with us.
She has been a part of my life for many years now, since a babe in arms. I've wiped her snotty nose and let her play at mum. I've watched her forward steps and many of her backward ones too, but i have always known she'd turn into a competent butterfly.
She often visits when she is at her most fragile and we have found that at those times good food can ease the soul.
Hearty breakfasts of bacon, eggs and mushrooms, thick slices of bread smeared generously with salty butter washed down with copious mugs of milky tea.......a grand necessity after the alcohol consummed the night before.

Lunch is in the aga...leg of lamb, well seasoned with garlic, salt and pepper laid on a bed of apricots......makes a fantastic sauce! This will be served with runner beans and carrots and lots of buttery mash.
For desert we're having pancakes with a lemon cream.

Heart attack tomorrow!

For supper i thought some rich brandy and herb pate with melba toast, watercress and best kalamata olives.....and undoubtedly more bottles of good French red wine.

Double heart attack and kydney failure to boot!

Lots of laughter, a smattering of sunshine and a whiff of country air should send her back to the big smoke rearmed and equiped once more to battle on.

Ah to be loved by two women

Not me of course, but a really special friend of mine is loved very much by two women.
Two very different women, i might add.
One has invested much of her life with him. They have children, a lovely home and a beautiful lifestyle. After many years i know she still feels the magic of a deep love and is incredibly physically attracted to him. They have a comfortable relationship, where silences can go unfilled, and then they often start the same conversation, simultaneously and laugh at daft puns. A warm, loving friendship, born out of many shared joys and pain too.
The other, has had a great friendship with this man, many, many years ago and i know in his college days was very attracted to her, but was perhaps afraid.....
She has had several relationships, as indeed has he, but they have stayed sporadically in touch.
Recently her husband, worried about her, helped her get in touch with this man. The friendship, rekindled and soon became a flickering flame, a flame full of passion, desire and new love.
They became soul mates, perhaps they always had been and hadn't realised.

It would seem that neither woman would be really content to share, although the new love, perhaps recognises that she would need to put up with it until she could persuade him to leave.

He has been asked to choose, and chosen he has......but there is always a cost.
I am really worried about the cost to him.
He is such a kind person, and to love two women and only be with one, especially when the other so obviously needs him so much must be very difficult.

It is all to easy to loose all in these situations. All for the sake of having all even for a few moments.

A small Success

A small success it may be but tomorrow i gain my OCN in woodland Management.
I have learned about sharpening and keeping tools in good order, about the physiology of trees, coppicing, pollarding, processing a fallen tree, hedging, and green wood working skills.

I have many qualifications, even a degree but somehow this very humble course is more important to me than all the others put together.

I am very sad that my family don't recognise this as a great milestone and achievement in my life....it will go unrecognised....a bit like me.

Places People Perfection

I used to love Devon. Many a holiday I've spent in my childhood on a boat in any number of harbours in Devon. The swoosh and lap of the sea gently lulling me into a gentle night or morn , seagulls calling and the strong smell of salt and fish permeating the local air.
When a teenager i went with a friend to a small Devon fishing port....one of the worst holidays of my life!
I hate Totnes with considerable passion, followed closely behind by Cullompton.
I've not been to either place and have no intention of doing so. They probably deserve my hatred not one little bit...nevertheless they are forever in my being as evil, vile places.
We often travel to Plymouth to catch the ferry to Roscoff and my heart sinks as we pass the sign for Cullompton first, shortly followed by the Totnes sign.
I saw this weekend past and i had an almost irresistable urge to deface them, wipe them out, delete them from the map of Britain.
I, stoically remiained quiet , biting my tongue, trying desperately hard not to come out with some nasty quip.
In reality however convenient it is to sail from Plymouth, i wish with all my heart to sail from Portsmouth.

Avoiding something you fear is natural, self preservation and all that stuff. Face your fear, do battle and conquer.....if only i could win!

I'm told i've won but somehow i don't think so......I've just delayed the inevitable.

I'm not too keen on Bristol either but perhaps thats just a fancy?