you say you want a revolution . . .

One of my Christmas presents from my scrummy daughters was to go out to Tea, a much deserved of a capital T Tea, in a quite-near-to-us-V-posh hotel. 

We dressed up, brushing the mud off our shiny boots and set forth in our finery to sample the delights of minding our Ps and Qs* in a completely overindulgent and as irreverent a way as possible.

A starched white linen cloth on an old oak table with perfectly folded napkins was set for us in a bay window overlooking the gardens which were gorgeous even in the rain. 

The Tea, brought to us on a triple porcelain tray, of small, crustless, rectangular  sandwiches; perfect, warm, crumbly, melt-in-the-mouth scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam (that was more strawberries than jam) and assorted exquisitely presented and delicious homemade cakes including crisp and chewy meringue (just how I love it), chocolate brownies, fruit slices and mince-pies, was enough to feed far more than the three of us.  It’s amazing how we exclaimed over the humble sandwich, normally the last resort of comestibles chez nous, but so delicious when so daintily cut and presented and with such yummy, if sometimes unidentifiable, fillings.  We licked jam and cream from our fingers (but in a refined manner), stopping only to ahh and ooh over the sheer unadulterated delight of consuming more calories than is good for one or even three.

Resting for a breather half way through, hands resting lightly on rounded tummies, some of us surreptitiously undoing a button, our chatter turned to the serious subject of New Year’s Revolutions as they’re known to us since a sweet but serious small child, who shall remain nameless, but wasn’t my first born, titled her first list of future aspirations way back in the mists of time (1995). 

Firstborn, who has been resolving the same issue since she was 5, said she would endeavour to keep her room tidy, or at the very least ensure there was a pathway between the door and her bed. Baby-Doc resolved to exercise more frequently and eat more healthily, and me? I resolved to not get married again. We didn’t want to set ourselves up for failure so we impressed on Baby-Doc that her’s was a ridiculous aspiration and she should go for something more achievable.  In the end we all agreed to not to get married (some of us again).

Sor’ed as they say in all the best establishments around here.

So to you all who may pass here I wish you the very best and everything you deserve for 2013, and may the rain seldom fall on your parade.

MAY HEALTH and HAPPINESS BE YOURS

(and mine please)

*what are Ps and Qs?

Baby-Doc and Firstborn

no entry for old women ...

Well here's a thing! I just knocked on my neighbour's door. The door of Kirsty-Cat, so called because she has 8 cats, to deliver the cat food that she had asked me to pick up for her, having spotted me venturing out in my wellies and snorkel, and having less sense than her. It was 11.30 mind when I sallied forth, and her still in her pink dressing gown. Anyway the knock wasn't answered. My ever over imaginative mind leapt to all manner of dreadful things that could befall a maiden in just her pink dressing gown, specially one who was finishing off a number of bottles that we hadn't completely emptied over this drinking holiday. So I rushed off, fetched her spare key and looked for the body. It was nowhere. The rain continueth, the wind bloweth mightily and her car was still there, as were her wellies and dogs. I trotted next door to Sensational-Susie's to ask her if she'd spotted KC's body floating past and here's the thing! The thing I started with, SS wouldn't let me in. "Is KC here?" I asked, peering round her to see what she was hiding, 

"Eh yes" she said, shiftily. I was momentarily distracted from her general demeanour of guilty secretiveness on noticing her thigh length boots, not waders mind, which would be sensible, but more of your man eating boots. 

A sheepish KC appeared round the door in full glam makeup and hairdo. 

"?!" Quoth I 

"Eh, we're having a little photography session" 

"?!"

"And profile writing..."

I begged them to let me in to watch and 'advise' but they shut the door in my face! 

Honestly I was laughing with them not at them, meanies. 

When I've posted this I'm going back over to demand entrance or peer through the letterbox. I shall take my phone and hopefully sneak a picture or two for your delectation. 

I have to admire them, I wouldn't have the nerve to put myself out there, but I wish to be included vicariously, that's only fair. I'll take bottle of something fizzy, that'll get me in.

a country for old men ...

I have drivers you know. 

Old men mostly, on whom time hangs heavily, so they find nothing better to do then become hospital transport drivers for the unable but not actually about to croak on the way. Some of them are so decrepit that I often wonder whether I should take a first aid course in case I’m called upon to deliver a burst of resus en route. And they’re all, without exception, quite mad.  Today I had Bill, he reeks of smoke, drives one handed and talks incessantly about his life in the army whilst looking at me and not the road.  I cling to the door in fascinated fear as he recalls his time as a cold war warrior doing nothing very much except in the Middle East where he appears to have taken delight in actually having an ‘enemy’ to fire upon.  He has a chest that rattles alarmingly on each painful inhalation and a wheezing productive cough that sees us stray regularly into the opposite carriageway.  It would be an ask too much were he to conk out and I required to perform the kiss of life. I’m sorry to say I just wouldn’t, but I would be sorry for his demise.

Sometimes I have Harry who is a touch on the over-familiar side. He is given to patting me with his gnarled old retired parachutist hand and calling me sweetheart.  Surprisingly, for I don’t like being man handled, I quite like him.  He doesn’t reek of smoke and his tales of daring do are laced with a hint of the secretive and imply he was where the action was in an undercover way, parachuting behind the lines and saving the world. He never comes right out and says it, but I’m given to understand, and I make sure I look like I do, that he walked the hallowed hallways of the SAS and stormed more embassies than you’ve had baths. As a rule Harry also stays on the correct side of the road and keeps at least one eye on the road even if the other is wandering where it really shouldn’t in a man of his age.

John, came across country 80 miles to pick me up the other morning.  He appeared a relatively normal looking old chap, quite dapper so also probably ex-military.  Like Bill and Harry, John is a widower and fills his days with ferrying the needy hither and thither. I’ve only had him the one time, probably because he decided to overtake on a blind bend and couldn’t help but notice me screaming about the oncoming vehicle that suddenly hove into view.  He spent the rest of the journey apologising and I’m sure I tried to reassure him that it was fine but my general demeanor of tension and the way I clung white knuckled to the door handle belayed the lie.

Martin is a nightmare. He believes he’s a cut above the rest and talks about himself in the third person. “Martin’s just going to look at his map” he says brightly whilst whipping out his OS and obliterating the windscreen and view of on coming traffic, but continuing to travel at the maximum speed limit. He also wears shorts in all weathers and has knees that should be illegal so offensive are they.  “Martin loves a jolly jape” he tells me as “Martin was in the ‘city’ and fun was in short supply”, “Martin loves transporting the old and feeble (he calls us patients) about the countryside for their pleasure” (really Martin, to hospital?)  and “Martin is an all round good egg”. Martin needs to fuck off I’m keen to tell him but after all, I think, I’m grateful for the service even if the risk of imminent mortality is greater traveling with these old geezers who, when all is said and done, have worked all their lives and find they can’t stop. 

So who better to take advantage of them and their, without exception, pristine vehicles for a pitiful mileage allowance. Non other than our beleaguered NHS. So while the Hospital administrators and private companies circling like sharks make a pretty penny from the system, our pensioners are upholding the system and without whom many of us would fail to even receive the care and treatment available to us.  

I’m so grateful and so angry all in the same breath.

II ... I>

You know, I had written a long, tedious and boring post about how my nearly ex-husband wowed the judge and I didn't, so he has ended with 75% of our joint assets because he lied under oath and the judge believed him and not me. 

But this ______________________________________________________________ is a line in the metaphoric sand and if I don't move on past it, I will become more bitter and twisted than I already am, which is quite dark and twisty enough for both of me.

It's tricky though isn't it? Moving on. Easier to say than do. And doing is some how important because if you don't 'do', what ever it is; you stay stuck like some log jam of nothingness while the river of doingness and life flows round you. And when I say you, you know I mean me, don't you?

So how, good people, do you do it? Where do you find the purpose in your daily bread? 

You would think, wouldn't you? That having been nearly dead, I would grasp life in both hands and say woohoo!  I would know what it was I'm supposed to be doing. I should feel grateful, but instead I feel guilty.  I feel ... paused. II

And I don't know where the I> play button is.